


“Even If The Morrow Is Barren Of Promises…”

by commoncomitatus



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: F/F, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-24 12:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 95,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commoncomitatus/pseuds/commoncomitatus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Early S1, around "Babel".  A not-so-minor case of insomnia and its not-so-minor consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

At first, it’s not even worth mentioning.

Well, at least she doesn’t _think_ it’s worth mentioning. To be perfectly honest, these days she finds it kind of hard to tell what is and what isn’t worth anything. Seven lifetimes will make anyone a little scatter-brained, it’s true, but more and more lately she’s discovering that by the time she’s decided something might actually be a little problematic after all, it’s already well past that point and into the danger zone.

In this case, at least at first, she’s pretty well convinced it’s not really that bad. It’s just a sleepless night, that’s all, and when was that ever anything to worry about?

Fact is, everyone has a lousy night’s sleep once in a while. It’s one of the down-sides to humanoid species, and all the more so when those humanoids also happen to be Starfleet officers. It’s just the unfortunate nature of their lives, the constant adrenaline rushes, the potential for danger in any given moment, the perpetual awareness of the unknown all around them; it’s the price of doing what they do, the cost of lives lived on the edge all the time. In its own way, it’s thrilling, and Dax wouldn’t trade it for all the gold-pressed latinum in the galaxy.

Right now, though, she’d seriously consider trading it for a half-decent night’s sleep.

If she’s honest, she’d have to admit last night wasn’t the first. Truthfully, she’s been sleeping badly for nearly a week now, so long that the jittery tiredness has become a kind of backbeat in the corner of her mind, a constant hum of low-level static that throbs in her brain like the pulsing of a warp engine. It’s a side-effect of settling into a new environment, she’s sure, and while she has nothing against this middle-of-nowhere space station, it’s not quite familiar enough to relax just yet; it makes perfect sense that she’d be restless, even a little edge, and so she refuses to dwell on it. Besides, if she can’t adapt to running on half-empty, she’s frankly got no right being in Starfleet in the first place. There’s far more dangerous things out there than a little sore-eyed sleepiness, and she has no intention of seeing this life meet a premature end just because she can’t handle a crappy night’s sleep or two.

Last night was more than just a lousy night, though. Last night, for the first time, she didn’t sleep at all. Not even for a minute, and that’s pretty odd in itself; usually, she can manage at least a few minutes at a time, even when she’s restless or hyped up on adrenaline or any of the other countless things that might give someone a rough night. Not this time, though; this time, she simply couldn’t get settled at all.

Her limbs have been twitchy for a few days now, and last night was utterly unbearable; she felt like she couldn’t stay still, like her nerves had gone live with electricity or adrenaline, and she couldn’t relax at all. It wasn’t just restlessness any more; suddenly, it was maddening, a kind of crazed hyper-energetic wakefulness the likes of which she’s pretty sure she’s not experienced in at least a lifetime or two (not counting that one time Curzon, on a dare, drank six pitchers of iced raktajino in less than that many minutes, and spent the next two days bouncing off any surface that could hold him), and not even two sonic showers have been enough to shake out the unpleasant ache behind her eyes.

Now, of course, she’s on duty, and though she knows she’s supposed to be focused on the task at hand, she finds that she can’t really do much more than stare blankly at her computer terminal, watching the streams of data flicker in and out of focus, and struggle to think through the muddy fog of fatigue. She won’t be of any use to anyone today, she can tell that already, but she goes through the motions just the same because it’s her job, and she hasn’t been here for long enough yet to let herself slip.

She can’t put her finger on what the problem is — if there even is a problem at all, of course, and she’s still not entirely convinced that there is — but whatever it is, she can feel it under her skin. It's easier to push it to the back of her thoughts while she’s on duty, while she has other things to try and focus on, but she’s smart enough to know that that’s just a temporary solution to an infuriatingly persistent problem. It's an anxious kind of feeling, like an itch inside her head, the kind that refuses to be scratched, and it would be driving her crazy right about now if she already didn't have so much work to do.

But, of course, she doesn't have time to go crazy right now. There are diagnostics to run, scans and analyses and a bunch of other things that she doesn’t care to name, and she doesn’t have time to think about anything at all except getting them done.

Todays _task du jour_ , like yesterday’s and the day before, is another one of Major Kira’s delightful little projects. The one-time terrorist has got yet another militant Bajoran bee in her bonnet — the third one in as many days, it seems, not that Dax is keeping score — and today she’s tasked Dax with finding out absolutely everything there is to know about Bajor’s second moon. Now, most days, Dax would be somewhat sympathetic, if not outright enthusiastic, about this particular cause (if nothing else, she supposes, it’s got to be more interesting than yesterday’s scan of the third moon), but her brain is so fried right now that all she can think about is how completely unnecessary the whole thing is.

Not that she’d ever admit it in front of Major Kira, of course. She may be tired, but she’s not suicidal.

What she is, however, is cranky. Cranky and moody, and so damn jittery that she can barely stand still. Her muscles feel like they’ve been socked with a few thousand volts of electro-static, and it takes almost more strength than she has just to keep her head up. She’s tired, so worn down that she knows she should want nothing more than to sleep, but at the same time still so restless and edgy that she knows she couldn’t even if she tried. Not that that’s really anything unusual, either; she’s been in Starfleet long enough to know that early-morning irritability is just one of the dangers of the job. Hell, she’s seen Benjamin growling and huffing more times than she can count in the few weeks since she was assigned here, stomping around like a two-year-old throwing a temper tantrum… and that’s _after_ he’s had his coffee.

But then, Dax isn’t Benjamin. She’s not Kira, either, or O’Brien, or any of the others who tend towards crankiness on a near-hourly basis. She’s Dax — _Jadzia_ Dax, the latest in a long line of hosts for the Dax symbiont, and the most blithely optimistic one in at least a hundred years or so. Maybe if she was still Curzon, she’d be a little quicker to indulge her temper, quicker to join in when O’Brien complains about little things that don’t matter, or when Constable Odo shakes his head at the lack of order in the post-Cardassian chaos that is their new home. Curzon, after all, could put every one of these amateurs to shame in the ‘glaring and sulking’ department on any given day, and he’d be proud as hell to do it. But Jadzia is not Curzon, and Jadzia is far more comfortable rolling her eyes and shaking her head and laughing it all off. Curzon wasn’t a pessimist, exactly, but Jadzia is definitely an optimist. They’re still new here, she says with a smile; things will work themselves out in time.

Fact is, there’s always something. They’re in the middle of nowhere, on a space station that’s falling apart, guarding a wormhole filled with god-like aliens… so yeah, there’s going to be the occasional issue. It’s inevitable.

Besides, they’re only humanoid. It doesn’t take much to annoy them even at the best of times, and there’s always going to be some minor irritant that will annoy Benjamin or antagonise Major Kira or upset sweet Doctor Julian; more often than not, Dax finds, it’s simply the fact that one of the others is already annoyed. Most of the time, Dax finds it endearing, if a little funny; it’s like they’re all in a constant tug-of-war with each other, all so desperate to be the one in the worst mood, and she frankly thinks the whole thing is kind of absurd. Not all of her, of course (Curzon, at the very least, would always appreciate a little competitive crankiness in his daily routine), but the part of her that’s here and now. The part of her that’s easy-going and light-hearted, the part that’s too busy living her life to complain about it, the part that has perfected the subtle art of bringing levity to her new companions when they need it and promptly ducking out of sight when they insist that they don’t want it. The part of her that’s just Jadzia: happy and easy-going, quick with a grin and a witty retort. Jadzia Dax, who finds everything about this place delightful.

Well, most of the time, anyway. Not so much today, and she supposes that’s the thing that maybe is worth a little mentioning. Because that’s just it: she’s _not_ like the rest of them, at least not usually. She’s not prone to this restless irritability, not inclined to sulk or scowl when things don’t go her way or shoo away a fellow officer just because the sound of their voice is grating a little too close to her nerves. Honestly, she’s lived so long by this point, she’s not entirely sure she even has any nerves left to grate against in the first place. It feels like they were all worn out two or three lifetimes ago.

Today seems to be putting that theory to the test, though. And maybe that’s Curzon’s fault; maybe there’s a little more of him left inside than she thought there was, because she can feel his quick temper itching behind her eyes, a dull headachey pulse at her temples, fingers twitching in her lap to keep from balling into fists for no reason whatsoever, and… yeah, okay, she’ll admit it: she’s just plain cranky. Cranky and moody and irritable and all those other things she gives the rest of them such a hard time about. She feels like every little thing anyone does or says is a lash at her back; every half-mumbled stutter from Julian, every jagged-edged complaint from Kira, every antagonistic ‘discussion’ O’Brien has with the computer… today, it all feels systematically designed to drive her crazy.

They’re all good people, she knows, and most of the time she finds all their little quirks endearing. Really, she does; she could listen to Julian tripping over his own tongue for hours, and she’s always the first to step up and talk Kira down from the ledge when her Bajoran principles eclipse her common sense. She’s always there to tell O’Brien and the computer to kiss and make up, or to tap Benjamin on the shoulder and tell him to straighten up when he starts to slump his shoulders. That’s the stuff she’s good at, the place where she excels — all the wisdom of the symbiont’s former hosts come together in a new one that is so wide-eyed and exuberant she can actually use that wisdom for good instead of… well, Curzon. She’s good at it, and she enjoys it. Most days, anyway.

Not today, though. Today, she just wants to throw them all into that damn wormhole.

She won’t actually do it, of course, and not because it’s scientifically impossible. She won’t because she is a Starfleet Officer and a professional, because Dax has lived seven lifetimes and Jadzia has spent all of hers up to this point just trying to be good enough. She won’t, because she has come too far and worked too hard to let a little sleepless night get the better of her.

…and, okay, so maybe because it’s scientifically impossible, too.

“Dax?”

Startled, she almost topples out of her seat, and when she whirls around to face the deep-voiced intruder, the look on her face is positively lethal. “Dammit, Benjamin! Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?”

Commander Sisko blinks and frowns. “I didn’t know I was expected to,” he reprimands gently, and lays a steadying hand on her shoulder. Dax bristles and hisses, unnecessarily aggressive and entirely unlike herself, and the lines on Benjamin’s face deepen with concern as he takes a cautious step back. “Are you all right, old man?”

“I’m fine,” she snaps viciously, and it’s about ten times more annoying because he’s about the only person on duty right now who knows her well enough not to believe a word of it.

He quirks a brow, and she’d swear she can actually see the worry swell to a crescendo; he’s always been good at that, letting people see exactly what he thinks without ever needing to voice it. It’s all she’s going to get out of him, anyway, and they both know it; Benjamin didn’t get where he is by being reckless or throwing words away without necessity, and he seems to know better than to push this issue now.

So he doesn’t. He doesn’t ask if she’s sure, if she needs a moment, or even if she wants to apologise for speaking to him that way. Not Benjamin; he just lets her see that he’s worried, gives a curt nods, and puts his hand back on her shoulder. The contact is firmer now, more solid, and she can tell that it’s not about offering comfort this time, but a subtle reminder of who is in charge here. Curzon may have been his superior, in more ways than one, but Jadzia is definitely not, and in his usual delicate way, Benjamin is using the touch to re-establish the boundaries of their respective ranks. He may be worried about her, but she’s still overstepped the line, and it’s his place to bring her up on it. That’s one of the things he’s always done so well, always so much more subtle than Dax ever was, and if she wasn’t so tightly-wound right now, she would admire him for it.

“All right,” he says after a lingering moment. He sounds a little cautious, though, like he’s still uneasy around her, and she wonders if he’s remembering the countless times that Curzon bit his head off for no apparent reason after a long night spent nursing too much bloodwine and too many women. “In that case, Lieutenant, would it be possible to get an ETA for those scans? Major Kira is very keen to—”

“Major Kira could stand to practice a little patience,” Dax grumbles before she can stop herself.

It’s unfair, and more than a little out of character. She really does like Major Kira, for all her preoccupation with moons, and she greatly admires her dedication to whatever great Bajoran cause she’s fighting for on a given day; she understands how hard it must be for her, coming fresh from the Cardassian occupation to a new world order that is everything she’s fought for and yet so different to what she imagined it would be. Dax has seen the ravages of war more times than she can count, but always from a safe distance; she can’t even imagine what Kira must be feeling, how lost she must be aboard this space station that is supposed to belong to her people but still seems so far out of her hands, this place that still smells of her oppressors. She understands Kira’s impatience, her need to keep busy, to stay focused on Bajor, to do anything and everything she can think of, to keep herself grounded as best she can in the world she knows. She understands completely, if not intimately, and until now she’s always been ready and cheerful to do anything the major asks of her, smiling all the while, even when it’s something as utterly pointless as scanning a moon for the hundredth time.

But then, in truth (not that she’d admit it right now), she even understands that. It’s not about the moons at all; even Kira would concede that they’re nothing but chunks of rock, long since abandoned of any use they might once have had. It’s not about them at all. It’s about Kira, and her need to throw out an anchor to the places that mean something to her. It’s a point of pride, and one of identity, and if she were in her right mind just now, Dax would actually feel kind of honoured that the Starfleet crest on her uniform hasn’t deterred the major from trusting her with such a task.

Today, though, she’s not feeling particularly charitable, and it shows. Even Benjamin — who himself has been rather less than appreciative when it comes Kira’s meticulous abuse of his resources — seems taken aback by her uncharacteristic ferocity towards the good major. Dax thinks about apologising for a moment or two, but she doesn’t. It might have been indecorous, but it’s also a hell of a lot more polite than what she wanted to say — _“she could always scan the stupid thing herself if she’s so damn homesick” _— so she’ll cut her losses and take it. Maybe she can’t stop herself from feeling unjustly irritable, she thinks, but she can do her best to keep her foot at least mostly out of her mouth until it passes.__

__“I heard that!”_ _

__…or maybe not._ _

__“Sorry, Major.”_ _

__Kira, of course, is irritable in a completely different way. She’s always a little short-fused, even when she’s in an otherwise good mood (not that Dax has seen any precedent for that), but right now she’s impatient as well as quick-tempered, and it’s something of an explosive combination in the headstrong Bajoran. Major Kira is someone who wants things done her way, to her precise specifications in every single detail, and to her exact schedule, whether those things are actually possible or not. She’s not an empathic sort of person, and she’s definitely not the sort of person who will accept excuses (even ones that might actually be valid); she is, however, very much the sort of person who will make sure things get done. In truth, Dax can’t deny that it’s a damn good trait in a first officer; certainly, it’s an effective foil tp Benjamin’s over-indulgent leniency (and how many times has Curzon warned him about that?), but that doesn’t make it any less off-putting when the good major is on the rampage._ _

__Today isn’t quite a ‘rampage’ day, blessedly, but it’s definitely a ‘no-nonsense’ one, and under normal circumstances Dax would probably just be thanking her lucky stars that she’s escaped so lightly until now, and all the more so when, even now, it seems that all she’s getting for her disrespect is a glare and a huff. It’s the Bajoran equivalent of a slapped wrist, and Dax should definitely be glad she’s not in for worse. As it is, of course, she’s not really in the mood right now to be glad about very much of anything, and so she just rolls her eyes with ill-concealed disdain._ _

__“Lieutenant…” Kira warns dangerously._ _

__Dax sighs. “I’m _sorry_ , Major,” she says again, injecting a little more sincerity into it this time._ _

__Kira narrows her eyes, but turns away just the same, apparently placated for the moment. Dax mutters a Klingon curse under her breath, and Benjamin gives her shoulder a disciplinary little squeeze. He cuts a glance at Kira as she returns to her own duties, grumbling about ‘useless Starfleet types’ as she goes, then cocks his head at Dax. There’s still just about enough self-control in him to keep from asking the question they both know he wants to ( _“are you sure you’re all right?”_ ), but his lips draw together until they make a thin line, sober and severe, and it’s pretty obvious that he’s worried. In its own way, the unvoiced concern is even worse than the question would have been; he’ll be breathing down her neck for the rest of the day, just subtle enough that she can’t call him on it, and that’s the last thing in the universe she needs right now._ _

__It’s a small comfort, albeit not much of one, to know that he’d be just as over-protective and smothering if she were still a man._ _

__On the plus side, she supposes, he’s at least a little more more diplomatic about it now than he used to be. The Benjamin Sisko that Curzon knew would have been about as subtle as a photon torpedo, hanging over her shoulder like a particularly oppressive shadow, grasping at any excuse he can find to ask pointless and unnecessary questions, watching her from the other side of the command centre when he thinks she’s not looking, and generally making an unbearable nuisance out of himself. It seems that he’s mellowed a little as he’s gotten older, and Dax appreciates that, but she can’t think of anything less enticing right now than spending the rest of her day staving off those silly mother-hen instincts of his._ _

__Truthfully? She’d sooner face the wrath of Major Kira._ _

____

*

It takes half the day to finish sweeping, scanning, and analysing the damn moon, and by the time it’s finally finished Dax is cursing the station’s worn-down Cardassian tech with every colourful alien swear-word she’s picked up over the last couple of hundred years (which, unsurprisingly, is a lot, even without all the Klingon ones). Benjamin is still not-so-subtly hanging over her shoulder, though by lunchtime he’s found the good sense to step away every now and then; it’s not so much a gesture of goodwill on his part, though, so much as a force of necessity, because Kira has honed in on her by that point as well.

Courtesy of the major, the last two hours have been an unending stream of relentless (and pointless) demands. One minute it’s _“are you done yet?”_ , the next it’s _“how much longer?”_ , and every now and then, just for diversity, she throws in a disgusted _“by the Prophets, Dax, how long does it take to scan one little moon?”_. It’s bordering on ridiculous, and Dax’s thread-thin patience is at an all-time low. She’s just about ready to scream, in fact, when at long last the damn computer bleeps and spits out one last stream of data.

From all the way across the command centre, Kira’s ears prick up. “Well?” she demands, crossing the space between them in about three steps and jostling with Benjamin for a claim to the limited space over Dax’s shoulder. “Anything noteworthy?”

Dax growls, really wishing that they’d both just back off and give her room to breathe for five seconds. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” she says, sounding tense even to her own ears. “A few scattered debris here and there, probably decades old, but nothing that suggests any kind of Cardassian activit—”

“Are you sure?” Kira interrupts, voice keen and sharp as a bat’leth.

Normally, Dax wouldn’t let the interruption bother her; she’s learned from repeated experience that there’s no point in even trying to argue with Kira when she’s got a righteous cause in her head, and she herself is normally pretty well endowed in the patience department. Kira is driven; she’s deeply passionate about what she believes in, and that’s an admirable quality, even when she takes it to extremes. It inspires a kind of awe, the spark in her eye and the way she rocks on her toes, lit up by whatever cause is setting fire to her synapses, and on a normal day Dax would simply stand back and bask in it, smile with genuine warmth and insist that yes, she’s sure. Today, of course, the appreciation is well and truly buried under her temper, and she’s in no mood to be interrupted when all she wants is to finish her job, get back to her quarters, and take a godforsaken nap.

“—activity,” she finishes with a pointed, aggravated scowl. “And yes, Major, I’m quite sure. You’d think it’d be obvious enough after seven hours of scanning and re-scanning, but if you want to hear me say it again, I will.”

Kira’s expression darkens, flint-hard and dangerous. She’s not like Benjamin at all, though they both have the same frustrating tendency to leap to the worst possible conclusion. In his case that tends to be _“are you sure you’re all right, old man?”_ , whereas with her it’s usually more along the lines of _“are you being insubordinate, Lieutenant?”_. Most of the time, she’d take Benjamin’s cloying good intentions simply because she knows him so well and she understands that it’s coming from a good place. But now, after being forced to endure half the morning with him hanging over her shoulder like an attention-starved puppy, she actually kind of prefers Kira’s unique breed of tough love. At least the major seems to enjoy the act of being offended by everything that moves; Benjamin’s just flat-out over-protective, and that’s a hundred times worse.

“I don’t want you to _say_ you’re sure,” Kira snaps, and each syllable is a whip-tight warning. “I want you to _be_ sure.”

“I am,” Dax counters angrily, and spins back to her console. “I’m so sure I could write a thesis paper on how sure I am.”

“Dax…” Benjamin warns, but she won’t bow to him this time.

“No, Benjamin,” she says. “Major Kira wants to know if I’m sure. It’s my duty as this station’s science officer to report my findings to her with absolute clarity, and if that’s what she wants, then that’s what I’ll do.” She tries to smirk, but the expression feels strange and twisted on her lips, sharp and bitter where it would normally be playful and good-natured. “So, Major. After seven hours of scanning and re-scanning, I can confirm with complete scientific certainty that Bajor’s second moon is indeed the second moon of Bajor. If you like, I’ll have a full report prepared for you by the end of the day.”

Her chair gives a brutal shudder as Kira slams her palm down on its surface, swearing furiously in Bajoran. “You’re not taking this seriously!”

Dax spins around to face her. Since the smirk was such an abject failure, this time she tries to keep her expression neutral. It’s odd; she’s not usually a lover of confrontation — if there’s one thing she’s learned over the last couple of centuries, it’s how to hold her tongue, whatever Curzon or Torias might have to say on the matter — but she’s more than just irritable today. She’s restless and twitchy, and her whole body feels like it’s tightening for something, like her adrenaline is off the charts even as the rest of her is thoroughly exhausted, and there’s that insistent itch at the back of her mind that is driving her almost to distraction. She’s been staring at the same useless console all day, running scan after scan after scan on something that didn’t even need scanning in the first place, and normally it wouldn’t surprise or offend her at all that Major Kira doesn’t trust her findings (after all, when does Major Kira ever trust anything?), but right now she’s just so damn tired that she can’t bring herself to care.

“If there was anything out there worth taking seriously, I would,” she says, softly but just as dangerous as Kira. “But there isn’t. So I really don’t see why—”

“Lieutenant!” Sisko barks, as though sensing where this will go if allowed to continue, and Dax can tell that he means business because he almost never addresses her by her rank.

Her neck snaps painfully as she cranes it to look at him, willing her voice to stay steady even as the rest of her body refuses to stop twitching. “Yes, Commander?”

“Take a break,” he says flatly.

It’s not an order, exactly, but it’s clear from the look on his face that he’s not opposed to making it one if she refuses. He’s good at that, she remembers; he’s spent years getting it down to an art form, that trick of giving commands without actually making them orders. He’s always been that way, even when he wasn’t actually in charge, and Dax remembers fondly that subtle way he always had of saying _“you’ll listen to me if you know what’s good for you”_ , and that tiny flicker of warning in his eyes that makes it clear that even a superior officer should probably do what he says. And it always worked, too, even when Curzon was at his most bull-headed and unreasonable; Dax remembers well, even now, how much the old man admired Benjamin’s unapologetic gall, flying in the face of rank when he knew that he was right, and Jadzia finds that she’s just as impressed by it now as Curzon was then. It’s hard not to like Benjamin Sisko, she knows, and harder still not to listen to him.

And so, because there is still a tiny grain of rationality left in her, she does. She turns, spinning the chair around with rather more violence than she really should, and takes a perverse amount of amusement in the way that Kira has to jump out of the way to keep from being knocked down.

“Dax!” she shouts, in a tone that’s about three parts outrage and two parts embarrassment.

“Sorry,” Dax mutters.

Though the apology doesn’t sound any more sincere than anything else she’s said today, the truth is that she does kind of mean it. She’s old and wise enough to know when she’s being unfair and irrational and a general pain-in-the-ass to everyone in a hundred light-year radius, but it’s kind of difficult to sound honest and repentant when she’s in such an unpleasant mood and there’s a heavy note of unintentional sarcasm in the half-hearted apology that makes it more than a little understandable when Kira wrinkles her nose and scowls her dissatisfaction.

“Get some rest,” Benjamin instructs, before the major has a chance to open her mouth again. “And come back in a better mood.”

“For all our sakes,” Kira quips, and gives Dax a wide berth as she passes.

*

To her credit, she does try to get some rest. It’s just that it doesn’t work.

She goes back to her quarters with all the best intentions in the galaxy. Once there, she wastes no time on formalities, stripping down to her undershirt almost before the doors are closed behind her, turning down the lights and ordering up some ambient music. She barely even waiting for the first note to finish before she flops down on the bed, face-first, and tries to close her eyes. Even before she hits the pillow she knows it’s pointless, but she goes through the motions as best she can just the same.

She honestly does try, and not just because Benjamin ordered her to. She tries because she really, really wants to succeed; she’s not usually one for taking naps between shifts, but she’s willing to make an exception today because she’s painfully aware of how desperately she needs it. She’s impossibly tired, so much more than she should be after just one sleepless night, even if she’s also had a few less-than-stellar nights before this point, and she really doesn’t like the way it’s making her feel. Not just tired or edgy, she feels wrong on the inside, unpleasant, like there’s something lurking inside of her, something that she can’t quite name but she’s sure she could if she could only get enough sleep to order her thoughts a little bit.

But apparently that’s too much to ask for. Whatever restless force kept her up all night is still very much awake in her now, and she can no more close her eyes this afternoon than she could then. Every time she tries, they snap open again, almost of their own accord, going wide and alert in the darkened almost-familiarity of her quarters. She can’t even keep them closed for more than a moment or two, much less long enough to drift off, and it’s utterly madding. She can feel her sour mood grow worse and worse as the time ticks by, more oppressive with every passing second, until she’s frustrated almost to the point of tears. Not that she would ever admit fault, but she can’t help feeling bad for Benjamin and the others who will have to put up with her when she gets back to Ops after this.

She tosses and turns for about an hour and a half, maybe a little more, until even the soothing ambient music starts to feel more like an irritant than a relaxant. As a Starfleet officer, she’s grown used to strange schedules and odd routines, and as a joined Trill she’s long accustomed to even weirder things than that messing with her sleep patterns, but she’s never been comfortable trying to sleep during the day. It’s always been a struggle, even when it’s necessary, and it’s been that way for as long as she can remember (though she’s not entirely sure whether that’s a gift from the symbiont or a particular quirk of Jadzia’s). Given the choice, she’d sooner power through, drink a little coffee to keep her head up and get through the day as quickly and painlessly as possible — to hell with how much of an ass she’s being — and go to bed at the normal time. Far better to stay focused, to have something real and tangible to vent her frustrations on, even if it is just the computer, than lie awake in this limbo of not doing anything useful but not resting either, feeling the frustration grow more and more potent the longer it goes on.

After another aggravating few minutes, she finally gives up. She kills the music, brings the lights back up (so bright and so sudden that they sting for a moment or two behind her eyes, leaving her blind and helpless), and swings back up to her feet. She may not be the least bit rested, but she supposes she’s been away from Ops for long enough by now that she can probably go back without risking one of Benjamin’s condescending head-tilts, and she’s just about to pull on her uniform jacket and brush the tangles out of her hair when she’s halted by a politely insistent chirp from the door chime.

“Come in,” she says automatically, and tries to straighten herself out as best she can.

Naturally, she assumes it’s Benjamin. He’s always been a little pushy when he’s worried about someone, paternal almost to a fault, and she knows that he’s had a difficult time adapting to the sight of his old friend in this new body. Dax, of course, is well accustomed to the female form — it’s been a while since she had one of her own, true, but she remembers the curves and contours well enough, if not the casual sexism that comes with it — and she’s taken it in her stride quite comfortably, but she’s seen the way that Benjamin’s eyes narrow every now and then when he thinks she’s not looking, and she’s noticed the way that his spine goes rigid or his voice gets tight any time Quark or Julian or some other unwanted guest lets their eyes lingers a beat too long in certain places. It makes no difference to her, and he should know better than to think that it might, but it incenses him just the same, and that patented hero complex she knows so well flares up brighter than a sun gone supernova. It’s sweet, if somewhat misplaced, but it lends itself logically enough to the idea that he’s the one at her door now, taking a short time-out to check up on her. It’s exactly the sort of thing he would do, after all, and his name is already half-formed on her lips as the doors slide open with their characteristic ‘whoosh’.

It isn’t Benjamin at all, though, and Dax feels her eyes go wide with surprise at the sight of Major Kira standing there in his stead.

“Major?”

Kira’s face is almost completely expressionless, like it usually is when she’s not righteously outraged by something or another. Her mouth is a thin line, almost invisible, and her eyes are like steel-tipped onyx, hard and edged with poison. She doesn’t make eye-contact, but then she doesn’t have to; she’s brought far tougher beings that Dax to their knees without meeting their eyes, she knows, and an uneasy shiver passes over her as that war-torn post-occupation gaze pierces effortlessly through the scrambled static sounds still skittering through her mind.

“Lieutenant,” Kira says, as flat and formal as if they were still in Ops right now.

It’s a cold introduction, but no more so than anything else she says; just like she is, the word is clipped and precise, and Dax clasps her hands behind her back, nodding with as much warmth as she can muster.

“Do you want to come in?” she offers, hoping in spite of herself that she doesn’t.

She’s lucky, as it happens, because Kira recoils sharply at the question. She takes a long step back, staring at her as though she’s just been propositioned in the most offensive way imaginable, and shakes her head. She looks nothing short of horrified, in fact, and if she were in a lighter mood herself, Dax might have found her outrage amusing. It’s always funny to her, the strange ways that different people react to different things, how quick they are to be offended by even the most well-intentioned offers. At least in Major Kira’s case, it makes a kind of sense; her whole life has been one long struggle against oppression and brutality, and Dax certainly understands why it might be natural for her to shy away from civility.

It will take a lot to gain this woman’s trust, she thinks, if she ever finds herself with a mind to. Right now, of course, she’ll settle for finding out why she’s here in the first place.

“No,” Kira says with her usual stoicism. “I just thought I’d stop by and give you the chance to apologise.”

For a second or two, Dax isn’t sure what she’s talking about; the last few wasted hours have drained everything out of her memory except the frustration of restless insomnia. All she can think of at first is the futile tossing and turning, the endless repetition of her ambient music and the strain of not screaming out loud as her head pounds and her body aches for even just a moment’s rest, and she’s all but forgotten the incident that got her sent down here in the first place, the scanning of Bajor’s moon and Kira’s outrage when she didn’t take it seriously enough. The whole thing is quite ridiculous, really, but Kira looks as aggressively somber now as she did then, and Dax can tell that she means business just as surely as she could tell that Benjamin did earlier.

“I’m sorry,” she says again.

She’s not entirely sure she means it, but she doesn’t have the energy for a confrontation. Let Kira think of her what she wants, she decides wearily; at least she’s making the effort to say the words again, even if they mean even less now than they did back in Ops.

For a beat or two, it looks like Kira will challenge her; there’s a defensive kind of growl buzzing deep in her throat, the kind that wild animals make when they’re claiming their territory against an unwanted invader. It wouldn’t matter if Dax had stumbled into her by accident; she’d demand compensation again and again and again until she felt it was sufficient. And Dax would give it, if only to keep the peace; if that’s what Kira wants, she’ll say sorry over and over until her throat is raw and her voice is gone, even as she knows it won’t make any difference. Fact is, when Kira has set her mind on being offended, she will be offended no matter what Dax or anyone else does, and if Dax’s body is too worn down by exhaustion to muster even a single syllable of sincerity, then no amount of repetition will wring it out of her.

Maybe Kira senses that, or else maybe she’s just feeling generous, because she’s quick enough to give up on demanding another apology. Dax wonders if perhaps the Bajorans simply aren’t so good at recognising insincerity when they hear it, though even if they are she doubts Kira herself is shackled by the same weaknesses. This woman is clearly as sharp as a blade, and she’s not afraid to stand up for what she feels she’s owed, no matter how petty. If she’s stepping down now, it’s a safe bet that it’s out of sympathy, not stupidity… though honestly, Dax is too damn tired and too damn cranky to care why. She just rolls with it, breathing a sigh of relief as Kira moves on with a curt nod.

“Are you well enough to get back on duty now?” she asks.

It’s a simple enough question, but something in it sounds unnatural on Kira’s lips. She shapes it into a demand, just like everything she says, but it’s also weighted with something that’s as close to amicable as anything Dax has ever heard from her, and it takes her a very long moment to realise that this is Kira’s idea of small-talk.

“I was about to go back up, actually,” she says, and hides her chuckle by ducking her head. “I’m feeling better now.”

Kira studies her, head slightly cocked, like she wants to get a better look and judge the truth of the statement for herself. It’s hard to tell whether she believes it or not, but even if she doesn’t she seems unwilling to risk another argument by calling her on it, and just offers a careless shrug instead. “Commander Sisko is quite worried about you.”

“Commander Sisko worries about everything,” Dax replies, raising her head back up so that Kira can see the fondness in her eyes. The words sound somewhat more cheery than she’s feeling, and her strain-tense shoulders relax just a little as she presses on. “And he worries too much, too. I’m sure you’ll learn that about him soon enough. For now, though, I wouldn’t pay him any attention.”

“I don’t,” Kira says soberly. It’s refreshing, how straightforward she is, how quickly she cuts to the point, and Dax feels a genuine smile lift her lips, easing some of the weight from her mind for a moment or two. It doesn’t last, though, and when Kira goes on, it’s with uncomfortable seriousness. “But in this case, I think he has good reason to be.”

Dax laughs. Her head pounds dully, but she shrugs it off. “Well, then, you both worry too much,” she says, but the smile on her lips is suddenly heavy and tastes bitter.

Kira’s eyes narrow, the first flicker of almost-emotion that Dax has seen in them today. “Exactly who are you trying to convince, Lieutenant?”

It’s a quick jab, but an accurate one, and it stings. This isn’t exactly a battle of wills, at least not that she’s aware of, but Dax has always had trouble admitting when she’s wounded, so she turns around to make sure Kira doesn’t see that the blow met its mark.

“I’m just tired,” she insists again.

It’s something of a relief to hear the words spoken aloud, even shaped as they are into the apology that Kira demanded so urgently; it’s still better than the alternative, allowing herself space to think about the potential truth in Kira’s implication, the idea that there might be some cause for concern after all. The itch is still there, behind her eyes and at the back of her mind, relentless and utterly maddening, and she would do anything to cast it out. Her limbs are still tense and uncomfortable, and she still can’t keep them from twitching, hyper-aware and thoroughly burned out at the same time. Every inch of her body is crying out that something isn’t right, that this is more than just a few restless nights and not enough sleep; seven lifetimes should be plenty to convince her to listen to her instincts, to heed Benjamin’s worry and give Kira’s gravitas the weight it deserves, but Jadzia is still new at this, and she will not allow herself to be weak. If she admits that Kira might be right, that there might be something to Commander Sisko’s worries after all, she’ll be admitting to a weakness that would have disgusted any one of Dax’s previous hosts. And that is simply unacceptable.

No, she decides after a moment, far better to just stick to what the Bajoran came down here for, simple words and simpering apologies.

“Look,” she says, taking a steadying breath or two. “I really am sorry, Major. I didn’t get any sleep last night, and apparently I’ve not had enough coffee this morning… or maybe I’ve had too much, I don’t know. Either way, I’m very tired and I’m not really feeling like myself.” She bows her head again, eyes locked on the carpet. “So if I was rude or insubordinate, I apologise. It really wasn’t my intention at all.”

Her reflexes cry out to turn back, to watch Kira’s expression and see if she’s buying it, but she’s afraid that that doubt in her own eyes will give away the lie, so she stands her ground and keeps her face carefully hidden until she’s sure it’s safe.

“All right,” Kira says after a few long moments. Dax feels every inch of her body relax, almost dropping to her knees with the weight of relief, and turns back just in time to see the major roll her eyes with unrepentant disdain. “I can’t say I’m surprised,” she goes on, with a condescending little half-chuckle. “You Starfleet types are all too dependent on luxuries, if you ask me. You wouldn’t even last an hour on occupied Bajor.”

“Well then,” Dax replies, matching Kira’s tone as best she can, “I guess we’re lucky that Bajor isn’t occupied any more, aren’t we?”

The blow lands, fast and hard, and Kira seethes.

“I hope you sleep better tonight, Lieutenant,” she snarls. “Because I fear for your safety if you don’t.”

*


	2. Chapter 2

She doesn’t sleep better that night. In fact, she still doesn’t sleep at all, and the next day she feels even worse.

All of a sudden, against her best efforts, it’s not just Benjamin giving her sympathetic looks, and it’s not just Kira losing patience. In fact, she’s already upset half the command crew by oh-eight-hundred hours, and that’s no mean feat considering that her shift only started at oh-seven-hundred.

Not that any of that is her fault, of course. Fact is, O’Brien is just stupidly sentimental when it comes to his precious equipment (and if the stupid computer just did what it was told for once in its stupid life, she wouldn’t have had to kick the stupid console in the first place, would she?), and Doctor Bashir is just a silly little boy who really should know better than to try and make the moves on her when she’s hobbling with a bad toe (which may or may not be a direct bi-product of the console-kicking incident, not that he needs to know that). It’s not her fault if they overreact to pointless little things, is it?

But then, Julian will be Julian and O’Brien will be O’Brien, and Dax may not know either of them too well just yet but they’ve spent just about enough time in each other’s company that she imagines she’s got at least some grasp on what makes them tick. She has a rudimentary handle on their individual peculiarities, anyway, and on any other day none of their silly melodramas would have sparked even so much as a thought in her head, much less the overblown reaction it does. She’s still cranky, still irrational, and still restless; in short, she’s still completely unlike herself, and all of a sudden she’s not so sure any more that it really isn’t worth mentioning, because if there’s one person on the whole space station who has never in all their live been irrationally irritable for two days in a row, it’s Dax.

Or, to be more accurate, it’s Jadzia. Some of Dax’s former hosts had tempers to counter even the Klingons, and she knows that Benjamin could happily vouch for it in Curzon at the very least. Curzon Dax could swear and spit and scowl with the very best of them (whether it was warranted or not), and more often than not he did it just because he could. Dax vividly remembers a grin on Benjamin’s face one night after a bar-room brawl turned particularly ugly; he shook his head and laughed, pointing out with a gleam in his eye that Curzon was only ever truly happy when he was angry. It was a valid point then, and the memory brings a strange kind of smile to Dax’s face now, too.

But that was Curzon, and he’s dead now. Jadzia is Dax now, and she is nothing like that. There’s a little of Curzon’s bloodlust in her still, that’s true enough, but it doesn’t define her any more than the lingering revenants of Emony’s competitive spirit or Tobin’s nervous disposition or Lela’s quiet reticence. Jadzia is Jadzia; she is a cheerful soul, optimistic and focused and very easy-going. She’s smooth where Tobin was jagged, soft where Emony was lean, distant where Lela was focused. She doesn’t lose her temper like Curzon did, and she doesn’t revel in violence like he did, either.

Jadzia is exactly where she wants to be, and she couldn’t be happier about it. She loves who she is and what she is, and she loves it with all the passion and the wisdom of someone who worked herself to the bone to get it, body and soul and everything in between. It’s joy enough for Jadzia now just to be alive. More than Curzon, more than Emony, more than any of them, Jadzia loves life. All life, unguarded and unapologetic, but especially her own. She lives and she loves, and she is happy.

Jadzia doesn’t have any reason to be irritable, doesn’t have any reason to be temperamental and moody, to let pointless little things get to her, even without sleep. None of this feels like her at all; it doesn’t feel like Jadzia, and if she’s honest most of it doesn’t even really feel like Curzon, either. At least when Curzon lost his temper, he usually had a reason for it, even when that reason was little more than _“because it’s fun”_. Not even Curzon would be so quick to get angry just because he’d had bad night’s sleep or two.

The niggling itch in her brain is still there, and it’s getting worse. It’s louder now, more oppressive, harder to think past. It feels like a klaxon, like the red alert warning on a starship, blaring out in endless cacophonous entropy, irrepressible and impossible to ignore until the lights go down and the danger is past. She wants nothing more than to make it stop, to silence the chaos… or, better yet, to silence everything. O’Brien’s whining and Bashir’s whimpering and Kira’s complaining and Benjamin’s sympathy; she just wants it to go away — all of it, everything — but it refuses to leave, and will not hear her cries for peace.

By ten hundred hours, Ops is almost deserted, in part because it’s a quiet day, but mostly because, by her own admission, Dax has scared everyone away.

Julian is hiding in the infirmary, having disappeared as soon as his services were no longer needed, childishly mumbling something about an outbreak of some disease that Dax is eighty per cent sure he just made up as an excuse to get away from her, and O’Brien stormed off to the promenade about an hour ago, insisting that he needs a stiff drink if he’s going to continue working under these conditions. Dax would feel kind of bad about that (though, honestly, it’s not the first time she’s driven a man to drown his sorrows, or sent another cowering in terror), but she just doesn’t have the strength. Every man not in her space is another voice she doesn’t have to hear, and though she’s slowly coming to realise that the cacophony won’t be silenced nearly as easily as that, she’ll gladly take any moment of respite she can get.

The trouble with this particular scenario, though, is that it leaves her alone in the company of Kira, and Benjamin… again.

They’ve spent the morning staring at her in hilarious tag-team alternation, Benjamin with his trademark over-protective compassion and Kira with a tight-lipped scowl that’s not quite brave enough to step forward into an actual confrontation. It’s like she wants to throw down a gauntlet, but she knows too well that Dax will pick it up without so much as a second thought, and no doubt put a hole in the nearest bulkhead in the process. She’s clearly not forgiven her for yesterday’s disagreement, but there’s something guarded in her too, something that suggests maybe she and Benjamin have been talking, that maybe she’s starting to get a little worried too.

Between them, they only serve to fuel Dax’s ill mood. All this watching and tiptoeing and stepping lightly around her, like they’re all afraid she’ll break (or, worse, snap) is like a drill hammering at her skull; it’s noisy and painful, and makes more mess than it mends. She’ll tell them when they have a reason to worry, goddammit!

At long last, and just when she’s about to reach her breaking point, Kira shatters the silence with her usual undiluted lack of tact. 

“Another bad night, Lieutenant?”

She doesn’t sound sympathetic, at least not exactly, but her voice isn’t quite as forced and clipped as it was yesterday. There’s a strange weight to her tone, actually; it sounds unnervingly like Benjamin’s influence, a kind of softness that doesn’t sound quite natural coming from a Bajoran, and least of all from this particular Bajoran. It’s like she wants to start a fight, because she always wants to start a fight, but also wants to understand why Dax is behaving like she is, and the juxtaposition only serves as fuel for Dax’s assumption that the two of them have been talking behind her back.

With more effort than she’d care to admit, she tries to shake the thought off. It’s bordering on paranoia, and she knows it. What’s the big deal if they have been talking about her, anyway? Wouldn’t it just go to show that they care? Wouldn’t that be a good thing? Even if Curzon doesn’t want to admit it and Tobin is too afraid to admit it, Jadzia herself knows that it is, that worry is close enough to emotion that she should feel flattered. They’re all still very new here; it’s only been a few weeks, and none of them really know each other well enough to know what to think, and it should mean a lot to her that any of them care enough to worry after such a short time. There’s Benjamin, of course, and she’d expect him to feel the way he does, but she’d never have thought in a million years that he would be able to convince Kira to feel the same way. Confrontational as she is, she’s still managing to hold her tongue, and Dax knows that for a Bajoran fresh out of the occupation that’s a really big deal.

“Dax?” Kira presses.

Her train of thought shatters, and she realises that Kira asked her a question and she hasn’t answered it yet. “I’m sorry, Major?”

Kira’s frown deepens, her forehead crinkling just above the ridges of her nose in a way that some of Dax’s former hosts (and maybe the present one, too; it’s too early to tell) can’t help thinking is adorable. “Another bad night?” she asks again, enunciating carefully.

Dax sighs; there’s no point in denying it, and at least the confession will go some way to explaining her behaviour. “Something like that.”

Kira’s features sharpens, and this time it’s unmistakeably closer to compassion than aggression. What has Benjamin said to make her react this way? Where’s the rage-fuelled, hyper-defensive former terrorist she’s come to recognise, the hair-trigger temper that she’s come to anticipate? Where’s the angry Bajoran looking for a fight, the militant patriot who was all but ready to pull a phaser on her yesterday for not taking a moon scan seriously enough? Where’s the Major Kira who was nothing like Benjamin at all?

Dax doesn’t know what to do with this new Kira, this strange woman who looks Bajoran but seems to be trying to shape her face into feelings it wasn’t built for. It makes her feel uncomfortable, awkward, and the uncontrollable twitching in her muscles starts up again as she struggles to think through the fog in her brain. If even Kira is looking at her that way now…

 _No_ , she thinks. _Don’t be ridiculous_. This is Benjamin’s damned influence, and it needs to be stopped.

“It’s nothing,” she insists. “I’m fine.”

“I’m sure you are,” Kira replies, sarcastic but not without some measure of almost-softness. “But we won’t have any officers left before too long.”

“If they’re that easily intimidated, they shouldn’t be in Starfleet,” Dax mutters, and she’s sure she spots the ghost of a smile touching Kira’s lips before she catches herself and chases it away with a thin-lipped _‘hmph’_. “They’re supposed to be grown men, not frightened little boys.”

“And you’re supposed to be a science officer,” Benjamin interjects, stepping carefully between them before things can escalate, “not a bully.”

“I’m not…” Dax starts, automatic, but cuts herself off before she can finish. She’s too tired to argue the point, even if she had a valid defence, so she just shakes her head and surrenders to the truth of it. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Benjamin’s got his eyes narrowed now, too, but it’s nothing at all like Kira’s, and the difference between them makes its presence known once more as Dax looks from one to the other and back again.

Even when she’s trying to be friendly, Kira has this constant look about her, a wordless implication that she’s always just a little suspicious. It’s like she’s present but not willing to get invested, like she’s got one eye on the door at all times, always counting her escape routes and calculating the likelihood that she’ll need to use them. She always looks uneasy, edgy, like she doesn’t remember how to trust, if she ever knew how at all. Dax understands that; the major’s history is written in clear paper-print across her face, the occupation and everything it brought with it, and in a strange sort of way she admires the honesty, the courage it takes to bear one’s scars so openly. Kira can’t be anything more than what she is — at least not yet — but she’s brave enough that she doesn’t pretend to be. Maybe one day she’ll try, and when she does she might even succeed, but she’s not there yet, and she has no intention of misplacing her priorities by trying to make friends or impress people she’s still not sure she can trust. She’ll worry if she thinks there’s something to worry about, but only to a certain point; Dax is still Starfleet, and Kira is Bajoran above all else. Everything here is still strange to her, unwanted and utterly undesirable; she won’t invest in anything here, and she will not let herself relax, even when nobody’s looking at her at all. It’s perfectly understandable, but it makes it hard to get a read on her, hard to make sense of her motivation.

Benjamin is almost the exact opposite. He wears his heart on his perfectly-pressed sleeve, his emotions always gleaming right there in his eyes, bright and crystalline, precious gems set against stone with passion and precision. Benjamin is as generous with his heart as he is with his culinary talents; he will offer all of himself without a second thought, but then a heartbeat later he’ll wonder why everyone is so quick to take advantage of him. It’s not a weakness, exactly (no matter what Curzon thought of it), but it does make him an easy mark, for friends and foes alike. Most of the time, Dax can tell what he’s thinking in a single glance, and right now the way he’s narrowing his eyes at her make it pretty clear that he’s worried about her.

“It’s just not like you, old man,” he murmurs after a moment, and Dax bristles.

Truthfully, she knows that, and that knowledge makes the fact harder to swallow. She knows it too well, and hearing it from him just makes it more real, more inescapable. She doesn’t want to have to think about this; she feels the prickling discomfort behind her eyes spark up again, the dull pounding in her head beating out a rhythm that sparks the anger in her once more, and she fights it with all the fury that Kira fought the Cardassians.

With more effort than she’d care to admit, she swallows that anger down, chokes on the rage that wants to lash out at Benjamin and his sympathy. She bites it back, holds it down, covers it over, and not just because he’s her friend. He’s her superior officer, too, and that’s the real issue at stake here. It’s one thing if she can’t hold her tongue in front of an old friend, but no matter how informal he wants to make this junked-up ex-Cardassian space station, Sisko is still its commanding officer, and Dax is still just a lieutenant, an idealistic young scientist prettied up in a Starfleet uniform. She’s outranked twice over right now, by Benjamin and Kira both, and this is no place to disrespect either one of them. If she crosses that line, if she can’t even hold her tongue when letting it loose goes against every word of her Starfleet training, then that just reinforces every drop of concern on their faces. It’s not like her at all; hell, it’s not like anyone in Starfleet. Talking back to a superior officer so freely and with so little cause, no matter their personal connections, is just one step shy of mutiny, and Dax will not cross that line. Regardless of her history with Benjamin Sisko, insubordination like this is a blaring red alert, and she knows it.

So, with a strength of will that physically hurts, she forces down the aggression and wills herself to relax, cheeks aching as they split her face into a false smile.

“I know,” she says; it hurts to keep the smile going even for this long, so she gives up the facade and heaves a sigh. “I’m just tired, Benjamin. I’m just very, very tired.”

Kira snorts, disdain heavy on her breath, but she manages to hold back from saying anything; it’s not really much of a victory, but Dax will take it just the same.

“If you need some time off…” Benjamin offers kindly.

“No!” she blurts out. She hates how frustrated she sounds, how strained, and so she forces her tone to soften just a little. “I mean… I appreciate the offer, Benjamin, but no thank you. We’ve only just got here, and there’s a lot of work to do.” He opens his mouth to protest, no doubt to remind her that there’s nothing she can do that Chief O’Brien can’t, but she cuts him off with a wave of her hand and another low sigh. “Anyway, it won’t make a difference. I can’t sleep, and all the bunk time in the galaxy won’t change that.”

It doesn’t surprise her in the least that Benjamin isn’t so easily placated. “Well, I’m sure Doctor Bashir has something he can give you…”

Dax grimaces at the thought of Julian. The Lela in her flushes hot with embarrassment as she recalls the look on his face earlier that morning as he ran fleeing from the command center, while Curzon beams with malicious self-satisfaction. The poor boy is probably still in the infirmary now, cowering under his desk, and Dax has no intention of making his humiliation complete by hunting him down in his homestead. Well, not yet, anyway.

“I don’t think so,” she muses, as diplomatically as she can while still fighting down the awkward blush. “I’m not exactly the good doctor’s favourite person right now…”

At her side, Kira stifles a laugh (or at least the closest thing to a laugh she’s probably capable of). “He deserved it,” she says, very seriously.

Dax smiles again, and this time it comes almost naturally.

*

By around twelve hundred hours, her head is spinning. She’s feeling light-headed, and the pounding in her head is almost violent enough to make her ill; it’s increasing her sour mood to no end, not helped at all by the way her computer terminal keeps flickering and losing power every other minute (another of the station’s oh so endearing teething troubles). At long last, just as it becomes a question of duty versus sanity, she gives up.

“I’m taking a long lunch,” she announces to anyone who will listen, and her voice cuts through Ops, loud and inarguable.

Ever the diplomat, Benjamin doesn’t argue. He’s a lot more laid-back than O’Brien, and a lot less skittish than Julian, but even his patience isn’t endless, and she can tell that it’s been wearing thin for… well, probably the last couple of days, really. At the very least, it’s clearly reached critical levels over the last hour or so, and, though he doesn’t say anything to suggest as much, Dax has no doubt that he’s as relieved to be free of her as she is to be free of her console.

It’s just a logical assumption that Kira will feel the same way as her commander; the major is a great many things, and a great many of them highly admirable, but ‘patient’ has never been one, and it’s a miracle they’ve not come to blows already. Dax just naturally presumes that she’d want to take advantage of the inevitable peace and quiet her absence will bring to Ops; maybe she’ll even find someone who takes the moons of Bajor as seriously as she does. 

Naturally, then, the surprise on her face is completely genuine when the major tracks her down at the replimat and, without waiting for an invitation, settles herself in the opposite seat. “Lieutenant.”

“Major.”

Dax has every intention of making the greeting amicable, but the word is tight, sharp with forced professionalism as she hunches sullenly over her raktajino.

Kira seems to appreciate the stoic bluntness, and Dax supposes she probably should have seen that coming. Kira likes things to be simple, the more direct the better, and the look that touches her face as she studies Dax’s isn’t quite a smile but it’s not exactly a scowl either. It’s almost like a victory, Dax thinks, and there’s definitely something in the way she tilts her head that looks like it might almost be approval. Kira deals with others in the way she likes to be dealt with herself; she’s forthright and straightforward in everything she does, and there are no hidden meanings or ulterior motives in any part of her. If it’s worth thinking, as far as she’s concerned it’s worth saying too. Still, though, sometimes there seems to be a kind of subtlety in the way she moves, an air of almost-sentiment that Dax is sure she doesn’t even realise is there at all.

“I thought you might like some company,” Kira says, and there’s that directness again, that sense of saying what she thinks. “Since you apparently have no intention of trying to sleep…”

“It wouldn’t make a difference,” Dax repeats with a sigh. “I told you, I can’t.”

Kira’s eyes narrow, and there’s no mistaking the concern in them this time. It’s not nearly as profound as Benjamin’s, but it’s there just the same, and it’s potent enough to be visible; from someone as self-contained as Kira, that says a lot. Dax knows, probably better than most, that this is a great kindness from her. She understands how that the Bajorans on the station feel, knows that there isn’t really any room on the station for things like sentiment or compassion, and for Major Kira in particular, so the thought that she might feel enough to actually let it show, much less in front of the very person she’s feeling it for (and a Starfleet officer, too!)… well, it means a whole lot more than it ever would from Benjamin ‘Heart On His Sleeve’ Sisko.

It’s not that Kira’s a hard-ass; Dax has heard some of the others whispering about that, saying that she’s a ball-buster and other such ridiculously archaic terms, and frankly she finds it more absurd than offensive. There’s nothing of that sort in Kira at all, and anyone who sees the harshness in her as anything more than the knee-jerk reflex of a survivor who doesn’t know how to do anything else is blind as well as foolish. Kira is not nearly as tough as she thinks she is — though Dax would definitely think twice before challenging her to a sparring match — and it’s frankly absurd that people would pass her off so easily as something so harsh and unrefined. It’s the nature of her life, Dax knows, that has made her this way, forged her in the fires of war and oppression, made her hard and unyielding, blackened her soul with heat and pressure until things like compassion and sentiment are alien and undesirable. She may not be easy, but that doesn’t mean she’s a hard-ass.

Major Kira is a product of the world she was raised in and the life that she was forced to carve out for herself in that world. Frankly, it’s kind of astonishing that she turned out as well-adjusted as she has. Dax has lived long enough to recognise that, and to respect it. She would never dream of judging Major Kira for being standoffish, even brutal if that’s what she felt she had to be, and she would certainly never force any kind of unwanted amicability on her. She knows that these things take time, even among races that take friendliness naturally; in a Bajoran occupation survivor, she knows, it’ll be a miracle if it happens at all. Truthfully, Dax is still pretty new to Bajorans — she knows Klingons like the back of her hand, but none of her hosts have spent any amount of time near Bajor, or Cardassia, until now — and she doesn’t pretend to understand the deeper nuances of Kira’s lifestyle or what she’s been through here. Still, though the species may be new, the story is not, and for all her ignorance in Bajoran politics, she’s certainly seen her share of retired rebels (and yes, even a terrorist or two), and she flatters herself that maybe, just a little, she understands.

This is new, though. Kira’s presence here is something she couldn’t have imagined, much less expected, and all the more so given their not-quite argument yesterday. Kira isn’t one for social intercourse even at the best of times, and Dax is very conscious of the fact that, right now, she herself is probably the least appealing lunch companion on the whole station. In her harried, jittery state, it takes her a long moment to figure out what’s going on, why Kira is here, and all she can see is the concern painted like Trill spots across her face, dark in some places and lighter in others, but always there and utterly impossible to avoid.

It hits her as Kira rests her elbows on the table and leans in, not looking at Dax at all but studying her raktajino likeit holds all the secrets of the universe. This isn’t a social visit, at least not in the common sense of the word; it’s an extended hand. To coin an old Earth adage, it’s an olive branch, an offer of peace in a neutral meeting place, and Dax is quick-witted and worldly enough to recognise the significance, coming as it does from someone who still doesn’t truly understand what the concept of peace really means.

“But, of course, you’re welcome to join me if you’d like,” she adds thoughtfully, and hopes she’s not waited too long to say it. She doesn’t lend any more weight to the words, simply lets them settle on the air between them, and watches to see if Kira will accept them. “You’re right. I would appreciate the company.”

Kira doesn’t smile, of course, but there’s an easiness to the way she leans back in her seat, a quiet confidence that suggests she’d had no intention of leaving even if her presence wasn’t welcome, but at the same time she’s kind of glad that it is. It’s strange to see her so willing to put herself out there so soon; not that she’d call this ‘opening up’, or anything even close, it’s still far more than Dax would have expected from her at this point. She’s not stupid enough to imagine this comes of Kira’s own decision; no doubt Benjamin sent her to check up on Dax’s mood, and probably even then only because the major the only one who’s not scared of her at this point, and Kira took the opportunity with both hands. Still, though, that’s not the really issue here. The reason doesn’t matter; in the end the result is the same: Major Kira is here at the replimat, keeping company with a Starfleet officer, and looking almost like she might actually want to be here. Dax had naturally assumed it would take years to get her sitting at a table like this without binding her arms and legs first, much less getting her to do it (almost) by choice.

“You really should think about talking to Doctor Bashir,” Kira says, typically not wasting either of their time on small talk. “We both know he’s not the type to hold grudges, and he’d never turn someone away if they need his help, no matter what they did to him.”

Dax does know that, but she still has no intention of talking to him. She likes Julian well enough when he’s off-duty (at least when he’s not making a fool of himself by trying to impress her), but in his element as a doctor? That’s another story. Doctors make her uncomfortable, and sickbays and infirmaries are even worse. It’s been that way for as long as she can remember, one of the less-than pleasant trials Jadzia had to put herself through as an initiate on the road to joining, and just the thought of that cold sterile environment makes her feel shivery all over. No matter how much affection she has for Julian as a person, she has no intention of setting herself up for being poked and prodded and scanned and who even knows what else in that unpleasant environment while he hums and tuts and makes all those ‘Doctor Bashir’ noises. It’s bad enough that Starfleet insists on regular medical exams anyway; she’s sure as hell not about to go seeking the damn things out.

And anyway, it doesn’t matter what the good doctor would do, because she’s still quietly confident that this whole thing will work itself out of her system on its own, given enough time. She’ll exhaust herself sooner or later, the natural way, and her body won’t have any choice but to let itself sleep. Who needs a doctor for that?

“I’ll be fine,” she insists, and stifles a jaw-breaking yawn.

Kira, of course, doesn’t buy it for a second. “You can’t go on like this, Dax,” she snaps. Dax supposes she’s trying to be tactful, in her own unique way, but it’s not really very effective; it’s hard to appear gentle when you look like you want to hold a phaser to someone’s head until they do what you want. “As your superior officer, it’s my duty to tell you that your performance is suffering because of this. I don’t want to have to order you to go and see Doctor Bashir, but if this keeps up any longer…”

Dax laughs, but the sound is brittle. “You’re not Starfleet,” she reminds her. “So you don’t have the authority to order me to do anything.”

Kira doesn’t back down, not that Dax really expected her to. “Are you really that much of a stickler for protocol?” she demands, though it’s clear that she knows the answer already. “Because, if you are, I could always bring the issue to Commander Sisko and get his authority?”

Dax holds up a hand, grimacing and gritting her teeth. “That won’t be necessary,” she says.

The surrender is a reluctant one, but it’s a surrender just the same, and if Kira knows even half as much about her as she seems to think she does, she’ll understand that that’s something of a big deal for a Trill, and for Dax especially. Admitting defeat isn’t something that comes easily to her, and it’s placing a lot of herself in this angry Bajoran’s hands to do it here. The already-thin lines between symbiont and host are especially blurred when it comes to her pride; she’s not entirely sure whether it’s one of Jadzia’s personal quirks — a revenant, probably, from the pressure she put on herself as an initiate — or an unwanted gift from one or more of the symbiont’s other lifetimes. Hell, for all she can tell, it could even be some myriad combination of them all, Jadzia included. But then, of course, the origins of the issue aren’t nearly as important as their effect, namely that even just the notioidea of giving up (whether that be by conceding a point, losing a fight, throwing a hand, or anything else that might shape itself as weakness in someone else’s mind) leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. She doesn’t mind being beaten fairly by a superior opponent; that’s different, and if she ends up bruised and bloodied and out of commission for a day or two, at least it would be proof that she held her own… but to have to hold up her hands and yield? That’s a different issue entirely, and it makes her very uncomfortable.

Kira, no doubt, understands the feeling well enough, but it’s different for her. Dax is proud; it’s one of her best and worst traits, and it gets her into far more problems than it gets her out of. It’s as much the symbiont’s flaw as it is Jadzia’s, and she’s come to realise since being joined that the two of them together could end up in a whole lot of trouble if she lets that pride go unchecked. She’s stubborn three times over — stubborn like the life-loving Torias, flagrantly refusing to take the safe path when the other one looks so much prettier; stubborn like the wild-souled Curzon, who would punch a friend as soon as look at him just for the sheer joy of feeling his knuckles find their mark; and stubborn like little Jadzia, who has worked too damn hard to let herself give up on anything. It’s almost arrogant, the way she’s so quick to defend herself when she feels like she’s being challenged, no matter the reason, and when she clings to a point, flogging it until it’s well past dead, it’s usually because she feels threatened.

It’s very different for Kira. When she clings to her points, it’s because people will die if she doesn’t. It’s not so true any more, of course, but there’s a great deal of adaptation she still needs to go through, and she’s not reached the point where she can relax just yet. Bull-headed stubbornness isn’t a point of contention for someone like Kira; it’s a point of survival. Just like everything else she does, she balls her fists and refuses to back down not because she wants to curry favour or prove her worth, but because she has been trained all her life to believe that the alternative is the stuff of nightmares. To someone like Dax, surrender is a matter of pride; to someone like Kira, it’s a matter of life and death, and Dax doesn’t doubt for a second that Kira would be disgusted, maybe even offended, if she saw what went through Dax’s head sometimes, and probably rightly so. The arrogance and the stubbornness and the fear of weakness that makes surrender such a hard thing to come by… it’s not a pretty sight, even to Dax herself most of the time, so to a dark soul like Kira’s it must be even worse.

No doubt Kira will see the way that Dax flinches as she surrenders, and she might understand that it’s cost her something. But right there underneath that understanding is a deeper, harder knowledge: that for all of her years of life and experience, she still doesn’t know a damn thing about what real surrender is.

For someone as proud as Dax, surrender is a gesture of good faith. She’s opening herself up in a way that goes against everything she is, everything she feels; she’s saying _“I respect you enough that I’ll throw down my principles for the sake of yours”_ and hoping that her companion will understand how significant a blow that is to her ego. She’s holding up her hands and yielding, and for her that’s one hell of a gift. To Kira, though, it’s just another mark of how little Dax truly understands, how small and worthless her offers are. Realising that, Dax suddenly feels very petty.

“Look,” Kira says; she sounds earnest enough, which Dax supposes is something, though it doesn’t wash away the taste of shame in her mouth. “I’ll even go with you if you want.”

It’s a sweet gesture, a kind of acceptance, or as close to it as she’s going to get, and Dax swallows over an unexpected lump in her throat. “That’s very thoughtful of you,” she says.

“No, it’s not,” Kira throws back quickly; she’s always so eager to cast aside any suggestion that she might be doing something nice, always so defensive of her anti-social bitterness, and it makes Dax sad to see it. “It’s not ‘thoughtful’ at all, Lieutenant. It’s just basic common sense. This issue of yours needs to be dealt with, and if you’re going to behave like a child about it, then I’m going to treat you like one.”

“I’m not a child!” Dax sulks, folding her arms over her chest (and by so doing, rather proving Kira’s point). “I’m older than you. Much older, as a matter of fact.”

Kira doesn’t miss a beat, and the way she rolls her eyes is as disarming as a phaser blast. “Then act like it.”

Dax scowls, but doesn’t argue. Mostly because she can’t.

“It’s just pointless,” she complains instead. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m just tired, that’s all. I’m not sleeping very well, and I’m tired.”

“And you really don’t think Doctor Bashir could give you something to help you sleep?” Kira presses. “I’m sure even he could manage that. He may be inept, but he’s not that inept.”

Dax opens her mouth to protest, but the words won’t come. Idly, she wonders if she’s more exhausted than she thought she was, because the reasoning is solid and tangible in her head but all of a sudden the sense of it is too elusive to articulate. She feels confused, a little dizzy, and her head is swimming.

It’s not the pleasant buzz she was hoping for after a long break; her half-finished raktajino is settling unpleasantly in her stomach, heat and flavour rippling out in waves of something that’s inching dangerously close to nausea, and leaving her jittery and queasy. It’s hard to think through that, even without the added weight of a headache and the mind-numbing fatigue, and it doesn’t help either that there’s a small part of her that can’t help conceding that Kira is right. Fact is, Julian is a doctor, and regardless of any faux pas she might be guilty of, he will want to help her. He’ll probably be able to, as well, but there’s still a resistance in her, a tension that flares up every time she thinks of it, and it turns her whole body to stone.

“I just don’t want to go there,” she confesses in a low murmur; it’s vague and petulant, but it’s all the sense she can rake over the hot coals in her head.

A barking laugh cuts across the table, short and sharp-edged, just like every other part of Kira, and Dax would be offended but she doesn’t have the strength. “That much is obvious,” she remarks cuttingly.

Dax sighs and drains the rest of her raktajino in a single swallow. For a moment, she thinks about ordering another — certainly, she could use the kick — but decides against it. She’s already far too edgy, much more so than she should be after just one cup, and she’s definitely starting to feel a little green now. It’s an odd feeling, like there’s something in the drink that isn’t agreeing with her, though there’s no reason it would be; she must have had a million raktajinos over the course of her various lifetimes, and always finds them delightful, and yet something in this one is sitting in her stomach in all the wrong ways, churning unpleasantly where the symbiont is, and for all that she desperately needs the energy boost, she’s not really sure she trusts herself to make it through another in one piece. Honestly, the way things are going today, she’s not entirely convinced she’ll even manage to keep this one down, much less a second.

Besides, if she stays here any longer, that will just serve as an invitation for Kira to stay with her, and while Dax always enjoys the company of a like-minded soul, she’s really not in the mood to be goaded into visiting Julian. She has enough to worry about, thank you very much, and she has no intention of spending her precious down-time being nagged and chastened by a Bajoran who would clearly rather be scanning her precious moon for the eighteenth time.

No, thank you. She’s done here, and she pushes her chair back with a little more force than is really necessary, hoping that Kira will get the message and leave too.

“I’m going to leave now,” she announces, when it becomes clear that she hasn’t, and it’s only when Kira’s expression darkens again that she realises how raspy and exhausted she sounds when she speaks. She clears her throat, tries to straighten her shoulders, and says it again. “I’m leaving. And I’m sure you want to go back to Benjamin, anyway, and tell him how I’m doing, so…”

Kira catches her arm as she moves to stand, holding her in place with a grip that belies her deceptive slightness. “Dax.”

Dax flinches at the contact, but doesn’t immediately pull back. “I’m not going to see Julian,” she says again, then sighs. “Look, Major, I know you mean well. And I know how big a deal it is for someone with your particular… background… to hold out your hand like this, and especially to a Starfleet officer. I understand all that, and I really do appreciate it. But I’m not going.”

“This isn’t about me ‘holding out my hand’, Lieutenant,” Kira snaps. “Or holding yours.” Her eyes are dark as thunder now, and just as dangerously; it’s like Dax has just said the most offensive thing imaginable by daring to suggest she might have some compassion in her after all. “It’s not an act of kindness or generosity, or whatever else your Trill optimism might like to think it is. This is about an insubordinate Starfleet officer who is clearly in no condition to know what’s best for her. And if I have to drag you to the infirmary by force, then so be it, and don’t think for one second that I won’t.”

Loathe as she is to admit it, Dax is impressed. “I’d like to see you try,” she quips, and finally stands, using all of her height to make the point. Kira’s lips quirk in something that would probably be classed as amusement in anyone else, and Dax celebrates the small victory. “Let’s face it, Major: you’re not exactly built for doing anything by force, are you?”

“I’ve got by well enough until now,” Kira shoots back, baring her teeth. “And believe me, Lieutenant, I’ve faced far more intimidating adversaries than a bad-tempered Trill in need of a nap.”

To punctuate the point, she tightens her grip on Dax’s arm, and Dax hisses her discomfort.

“Don’t be so sure,” she mutters sulkily, as Kira hauls her out the door.

*

Kira does drag her to the infirmary, though not by force, and Dax consoles herself that it’s only because she lets her.

Julian seems to be enjoying some down-time of his own when they arrive. He’s got his feet up on one of the table-like surfaces (and Dax finds herself struggling not to think too hard about how unsanitary that is; isn’t he supposed to be a doctor?) and a PADD in his lap. He’s studying it with a kind of intensity that Dax recognises all too well, and she can’t quite fight the little smirk that touches her lips at the sight. If the look on his face is anything to go by, his chosen reading material has nothing whatsoever to do with his job, and she shakes her head with an appreciative chuckle, remembering all too well what it’s like to be a young man in the middle of nowhere with a little free time and a lot of pent-up energy.

At any rate, he doesn’t so much as glance up when he hears the doors slide open (assuming he even hears it at all), and it’s only when Kira clears her throat in a very pointed manner that he raises his eyes and sees them. And promptly falls out of his chair.

“Lieutenant Dax!” he blurts out, and Dax can tell he’s one floundering whimper away from ducking and hiding under the table.

She tries to apologise, but once again she discovers that she can’t articulate it. Just like before, the words bubble and dissolve, gurgling in her throat before she can grasp at them, and she finds herself empty-handed and frustrated. She feels her shoulders go taut, her back tensing, like her whole body is straining for cohesion, but nothing comes at all.

Kira, misinterpreting the reaction as one of defiance, tightens her grip on her arm. She doesn’t speak for a moment or two, but there’s a hard glint in her eyes when they meet Dax’s, a fleeting flicker of warning, as if to say _“go ahead and try something if you think it’ll help, but I’d advise against it if you know what’s good for you”_ , and then she’s shoving her across the empty space and towards the startled doctor.

“The lieutenant is very sorry,” she says, when it becomes obvious that Dax won’t say it herself.

Dax is pretty sure she’s never heard so little sincerity in anything in all her lives, but it’s enough of an opening that she finds her voice, and she hangs her head in half-hearted repentance. “Very sorry,” she echoes feebly. “I was… well, I wasn’t feeling quite myself this morning.”

Julian cocks his head to the side, like a puppy who’s just been told he’s allowed out of his kennel for the first time. “Oh?” he manages, bumbling and mumbling in a way that she’s come to associate as typical of him. “Oh! Well, yes. Of course, uh…”

It’s not quite so endearing to Kira as it is to Dax; the look on her face makes it clear she wants to smack some aptitude into him, but he’s still safely out of her reach, and so she vents her annoyance instead by giving Dax another shove.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she grumbles, all impatience and irritability. “She’s very sorry. She didn’t mean to throw the tricorder at your head, and she definitely didn’t mean to hit you with it. She’s terribly sorry that it happened, and she’d very much like for you both to put the whole thing behind you.” She smiles, but it’s not exactly reconciliatory; it’s more like the kind of bared-teeth almost-grin that a deep-sea predator would give its prey right before it swallows them whole. “So if it’s not too much trouble, Doctor Bashir, could we please move past the awkward flailing and do our jobs?”

Still as awkward as ever, Julian coughs and splutters. He looks about as useless as Dax feels right now, though in his case that’s not really anything new. As irritating as it is to Kira, Dax actually finds it kind of charming, albeit in a way that doesn’t exactly inspire much confidence, and she manages a wan little chuckle as he flails desperately to regain some shred of his dignity.

“Of course,” he says again. “I mean… that is, uh… of course. Is it your toe? Do you need more pain medication?”

“No,” Kira interjects on her behalf, “but the rest of us probably will if you don’t do something about this.”

The puppy-dog optimism vanishes as Julian’s face falls, confusion and helplessness overpowering everything else, and if she wasn’t feeling so unlike herself, Dax is sure she’d find it positively adorable. She can see Emony’s kind eyes in the back of her mind, and Audrid’s affectionate smile, both coupled with the derisive voice of Curzon tutting and huffing his disgust as Torias looks on and shakes his head. They all mesh together for a few seconds, leaving her unfocused and ungrounded, and in the moment or two before it passes, she finds she can’t remember which version of Dax she is any more.

The lapse is just a brief one, though, and then she’s back to herself. Back to the version of herself she is right now, anyway, the cranky and sleep-deprived Jadzia, touched by the others’ memories but not a slave to them. The world darkens, fades out for a moment, and she braces herself against the nearest bed; Kira’s nails dig into the flesh of her arm, and she lets the pain ground her a little. She feels disoriented and disjointed, impossibly old and very very young at the same time.

Dimly, she’s aware of Julian’s eyes on her, dark irises gone darker still with worry, and she tries to tell him that he doesn’t need to waste his time worrying about her, but the words won’t come. The sting of Kira’s nails is a little sharper now, bordering on unpleasant, and she tries to pull back, but she can’t. Kira is half her size, and there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that Dax could kick her ass with one arm tied behind her back; it shouldn’t be too difficult for a Starfleet officer to break a skinny Bajoran’s hold, no matter how tight she thinks it is, but Dax finds that she can’t move at all. She’s frozen in place, paralysed not just by Kira’s sharp nails, but by herself as well… or a part of herself, anyway. She tries to struggle, but she can’t manage that either, and the sound that looses from her throat isn’t a word at all, but a dull whine.

Kira’s frowning now, too, like she’s aware that something isn’t right. “Dax?”

Dax swallows. Her throat feels dry and rusted; she can still taste the raktajino at the back of her throat, and her nerves whimper unhappily. “It’s nothing,” she says, massaging her temples with both hands.

Julian coughs, oblivious as he struggles to play the part of professional physician. “So then,” he says, as cheerfully as he can, “what seems to be the trouble?”

“It’s nothing,” Dax mumbles again.

“That’s the last thing it is,” Kira retorts, then turns to Julian, as if she really believes his input is worth anything at all. “She’s not sleeping,” she explains. “And it’s starting to affect her performance.”

Now that it’s out there — or, more accurately, out here, here in the infirmary where the sick and injured go to feel bad about themselves — it sounds absolutely ridiculous. Dax cringes, humiliated, and finally comes back to herself enough to yank her arm free from Kira’s grasp. She wrenches backwards with unnecessary violence, angry and hurt and, above all, embarrassed. It’s the Curzon in her, she knows, the needless aggression and the hyper-defensive snarl that curls her lip and stutters in her throat.

She didn’t want to come here — didn’t _need_ to come here, dammit! — and now that she is, now that the words are out there, unavoidable, Julian and Benjamin and Kira and everyone else will think that she’s weak and pathetic. They’ll look at her and whisper, shake their heads and see someone barely fit to wear the uniform, a stupid recruit fresh out of the Academy… or, worse, a silly little girl who can’t even handle a bad night’s sleep or two.

Benjamin will be the worst, of course. He knew Curzon; no, he didn’t just know him, he cared for him. They were close, and Curzon’s affection for Benjamin is still very much alive in Jadzia too. Most of the time it’s a good thing; it’s comforting, she’s found, to have so deep a connection with someone in this strange new place. But now, it feels like the weight of a dozen worlds, a burden she couldn’t carry even if she was feeling well; Benjamin knew Curzon almost as well as he knew himself, and he’s seen time and time again how tough he was, how brave and strong and durable, how impossible to break. The old man was practically indestructible, and few people in the galaxy know that as well as Benjamin Sisko. He knew the best of Dax, the most vicious and relentless part, the part that resonates still in the darkest corners of Jadzia, as brutal and stubborn as a Klingon, and sometimes just as violent. Benjamin knows her — knows _Dax_ — too well, too intimately, too completely. He’s seen the very best of her, and the heat of shame carves a painful path right through her chest at the thought of letting him down, of seeing the look on his face as he realises once and for all that Jadzia will never be as strong as Curzon.

It’s not just him, though. There’s Kira, too, and Julian, and she can already see the look on the good doctor’s face, surprise mingling with disbelief. _“Is that all?”_ , he wants to say, but he’s holding his tongue because it’s bad bedside manner to mock a patient (and, of course, that’s what she is now, a _patient_ , as if the situation wasn’t painful enough) when they come to him for help. He pities her, but he’s surprised too, and she can understand why; Julian, for all his cock-eyed hopefulness and youthful exuberance, is as useless as anyone she’s ever seen clad in a Starfleet uniform, and even he wouldn’t come all the way to the infirmary just for a damn sleeping pill.

Kira is holding her arm again, even tighter now than before, hard enough that Dax is sure she’s going to leave a mark. She’s not just trying to hold her still, she realises thickly, but to hold her upright too. Kira is a strong mind living in a strong body, and she does what she feels is necessary, regardless of the consequences. The way she’s looking at Dax right now is terrible, like she’s one one of her precious Bajoran war orphans, a child incapable of comprehending the horrible things happening all around her. She’s looking at her like someone who can’t take care of herself, someone who needs help all the more desperately because she can’t see how bad her situation really is. It’s just like she said at the replimat: she’s not seeing a strong and healthy young woman who has just had a few rough nights; she’s seeing an insubordinate lieutenant who doesn’t know what’s best for her. She’s seeing someone weak and small and stupid… and the worst part is, she’s right.

Desperately clinging to his professionalism, Julian clears his throat. “I… see.”

He’s trying so hard to be diplomatic, and that just makes it the opposite. There’s nothing diplomatic about the look on his face, and there’s nothing diplomatic in the way that he’s so clearly struggling to get his head around what he’s being told. There’s nothing diplomatic in Kira, either, but at least Dax knows to expect that from her by by now. Kira doesn’t do ‘diplomacy’; she doesn’t feign politeness when honest disdain will serve just as well, and in a strange sort of way, it’s kind of comforting to know that she would never try to coddle. Dax knows precisely where she stands with Kira, knows that just because she scowls or makes rude comments or thins her lips and storms out, that doesn’t make it a personal attack, that it’s just Major Kira being Major Kira. Dax has spent enough time in the company of enough people over the course of her lifetimes to know that sometimes people are just like that. Sometimes people are just ill-tempered and blunt, and Major Kira happens to be one of them. Dax knows that about her; she understands it, and is perfectly happy to put up with it. All of Kira’s cards are on the table at all times, and Dax has won enough games of Tongo in her life to know that that’s never a bad thing.

Julian Bashir is nothing like that. He’s not ruthless or straightforward, and he’s certainly not honest to the point of rudeness. He’d sooner bend over until his own spine snaps than risk offending someone. He’s a starry-eyed dreamer, an optimist and an idealist; he’s not a revenant of war, a former terrorist, or a survivor. He’s just a little boy playing at being a doctor, and of course he does the best he can, but he’s still got a hell of a lot to learn. He’s hard-working and diligent, admirable to be sure, but the plain fact is that he’s more likely than not to trip over his own feet in a desperate struggle to do or say the right thing than to actually get the damn thing done. Dax understands that, too, and she’s usually got a lot of time and patience for him; she understands the need to fit in, the relentless urge to be loved and appreciated at all times, to not offend anyone or say anything stupid. She knows, too, what it’s like to be a young man acutely aware of his own clumsiness, and she empathises with him on a level that she imagines very few others do. She understands Julian because she’s _been_ Julian, and that’s why it’s such a cut to see the overt disbelief she’d expect from Major Kira shining in his eyes instead.

It catches her by surprise when Kira’s hand slides down from her arm, drifting restlessly until it comes to rest at her waist instead. The contact only lasts a moment, but just like everything Kira does, it’s very deliberate. The touch is soft, feather-light and gentle, and carries no trace of her usual forcefulness; belatedly, Dax realises that she means it to be a gesture of support. It’s fleeting, of course, and wordless, barely even there at all, but it’s the only kind of compassion that someone like Kira is able to offer. In anyone else, it would hardly have been worth noticing at all; Dax might have missed it entirely. A little gesture, a barely-existent contact; it might even have been an accident. But, of course, Kira never does anything by accident, and certainly nothing like this; coming from her, this tiny barely-there gesture becomes something huge, and Dax finds herself almost floored by the weight of it.

Strengthened by the gesture, if only a little, she locks eyes with Julian, watching his lip quiver as her jaw gives a defensive clench. “It’s nothing,” she says again, emphatically this time. “Major Kira just thought I could use something to help me get some sleep.”

Julian is still staring at her, and it’s only when Kira snarls a warning that he comes back to his senses and remembers the importance of bedside manner. Coughing delicately, he spins away from them both, and makes a grand show of rummaging through his work space, as if he doesn’t know with pinpoint precision where absolutely everything is in here.

“Of course,” he mumbles, for about the thousandth time. “I see. Of course.”

He blushes furiously when they both glare at him, and fumbles awkwardly for a hypospray. Dax has no intention of listening to a rambling explanation of the hypo’s contents, but he gives her one anyway, no doubt as much for his own benefit as for anyone else’s. Apparently, physicians find it calming to talk shop with unwilling patients. At any rate, she catches half-familiar phrases like ‘melatonin’ and ‘regulation’, but honestly she pretty much stops listening after about five words. She focuses for just long enough to hear the important part of his explanation — _“give yourself one dose about ten minutes before you go to bed, and another four hours later if you need it”_ — and then swiftly goes back to ignoring everything he says.

By the time he’s done, she’s feeling oddly shaky. Maybe it’s all that obnoxious medical jargon, or maybe the day is catching up on her again; whatever the reason, she finds herself wobbling a little on her feet as Kira guides her out of the infirmary, and there are sudden shadows behind the major’s eyes as she halts them both in the corridor outside to take a look at her.

“You should go and try that hypo now,” she suggests, and for once it’s just that: a suggestion, nothing more.

“Not yet,” Dax answers, and even she isn’t really sure why.

Kira frowns again, perplexed. The rational officer in her doesn’t understand the hesitation, and in truth Dax doesn’t really understand it either. She’d give anything right now just to be able to close her eyes even for a moment, but something is holding her back, skittering like a bug down her spine and ringing out like a concussive blow at the back her head. Jadzia has never had a concussion (well, not yet, anyway), but Curzon had a million of them and his memories flicker and ripple in imperfect reflection through her consciousness. She feels queasy again, and restless, and the thought of pumping herself full of sedatives and lying down fills her with a kind of dread she can’t quite explain.

“Dax,” Kira says, very softly.

“I know,” Dax replies. “But not yet, all right? I’ll try it tonight, when I go to bed, like Julian said.”

She’s hyper-defensive, and if there’s one soul aboard this space station who will bristle at that, it’s Major Kira. Her frown deepens, the clouds behind her eyes growing darker and heavier, and for a moment Dax expects her to bark it out like an order, shape it into a command in lieu of Benjamin being here to do so for her. It would probably do them both some good if she did; Kira seems to be in her element when she’s yelling at people who otherwise wouldn’t listen to her, and Dax would be the first to admit that she herself sometimes needs a good yelling at.

It’s a surprise to them both when the order doesn’t come. Instead, Kira just moves on, letting Dax trail behind her with the hypo hanging loosely from her fingers, the subject dropped for the time being.

They come to a stop again outside the turbolift, and Dax is suddenly acutely aware of the way Kira’s hand wanders; it’s just as deliberate as before, and just as telling too. She presses in light touches against the fabric of her uniform, her waist again, then her hip, then at last the hand that holds the hypo. There’s no pressure in her, no aggression; she’s not holding her in place, or even holding her up this time. She’s not really holding her at all, just touching her, and barely even doing that; it’s even more fleeting than before, firmer but still unfathomably light, like she can sense the inexplicable turmoil, the unsteadiness pulling Dax apart from inside, and wants to help but realises she probably can’t.

And Dax realises, too, how strange that is, how unusual that of all the people on the station it’s Major Kira who is here with her now, touching her so lightly and so deliberately, reaching out in spite of them both. It’s not her friend Benjamin, not her doctor Julian, but Major Kira, who is nothing to her at all. Major Kira, the angry Bajoran first officer with no love for anyone who wears Starfleet colours, the fierce young woman who has known nothing but violence and hatred all her life. Major Kira, the exotic and beautiful alien who refuses to let herself feel anything at all. It’s her, _Kira_ , struck by something bigger than herself, and Dax in her turn struck dumb by the way her spider-thin fingers brush against the fabric of her uniform, barely a touch but unbearably touching.

It’s startling, and inspiring, and Dax feels her breath catch in her throat in the same moment that Kira’s stutters in her own, and she pulls her hand away with an inexplicable sharpness that says she’s only just realised what she’s doing.

“You should go and try that hypo now,” she says again, very quietly, and there’s so much more to the words now than there was even just a moment ago.

Dax swallows. She’s afraid, and she doesn’t know why. Nothing she says or thinks is making any sense any more, but she knows that she’s afraid. Afraid of closing her eyes, afraid of keeping them open, afraid of facing her quarters alone. She shivers, feels her mind rebelling against mnemonic images — the artificial darkness, the ambient music the tossing and turning of restlessness, the drilling behind her eyes every time she tries to close them, the pressure and the frustration — and her heart seizes with inexplicable terror. It frightens her, the idea of facing all of that again, and Julian’s hypo feels cold and useless in her hand. She’s afraid of it, too, just as she’s afraid of everything right now. Afraid of her thoughts and her feelings, afraid of the moodiness it leaves behind, afraid of being awake and afraid of being sedated.

She is afraid, irrationally and completely and of everything she can think of… but then Kira’s fingers brush against her own again, and the fear flickers and fades like a flame thrown into a vacuum.

“All right,” she breathes at last, coming back to herself. “All right. I’ll go.”

Kira nods. “Good,” she, says and squeezes her hand.

She lingers at her side for a moment longer than necessary, eyes more like smoke than cloud now, and when she turns to leave, Dax’s senses cry out, every nerve alight with the memory of her fingertips.

“Good,” she echoes, and the word reverberates in the hollow corridor like a whispered promise in a language she doesn’t speak.

*


	3. Chapter 3

She does as she’s told, but the sedative is no more effective than anything else.

She’s pretty sure she takes over and above the so-called ‘recommended dosage’, at least as far as Julian stated it, but it really doesn’t matter how much she takes because not even the whole hypo’s worth has the least effect whatsoever. She feels the hiss of the spray against her skin, feels the light-headed buzz as the drug seeps into her bloodstream, imagines she feels the symbiont’s rebellious wriggling as it fights the sedative’s hold. She feels it all, potent and over-sensitised, but in the end none of it makes the least bit of difference because even pumped full of sedatives she still can’t sleep.

It’s hopeless, futile and excruciating, and the only slight difference she notices with Julian’s concoction in her system is that her neck stings a little where the hypospray touched it and her stomach roils against the overdose.

Truthfully, the latter probably more a side-effect of the sleep deprivation than any fault of the drug itself, but she’s discovered that it’s quite shamelessly easy to blame Julian for pretty much everything that goes wrong on the station. Well, everything that isn’t Chief O’Brien’s fault, anyway. The poor boy may be a second-rate doctor, but he’s a first-rate scapegoat.

She tries at first to do as Kira instructed, to take a nap and rest through the afternoon. It’s as pointless as she expected, though, and it’s not long at all before she feels the claustrophobic tug of that same twitchy restlessness, the walls closing in and the ceiling seeming to tilt and threaten above her. She tries for maybe an hour, because she promised Kira that she would, but it’s obvious after about three minutes that it’s a lost cause; her head aches and her eyes hurt, but she can’t hold still. All the sedative does is dampen and dull all of her senses, leaving her half-numb and confused, even closer to delirium than she was before. Her limbs twitch almost of their own accord, and she stares helplessly up at the ceiling, watching as it flickers under the dimmed lights, uncomfortable and still so unexplainably afraid.

When she finally gives up and returns to Ops, the expectant look on Kira’s face almost drives her to her knees. It’s like she’s actually kind of invested in this, and not just because Dax is nothing short of a monster when she’s in a bad mood. She doesn’t say anything, perhaps not wanting to mention it in front of Benjamin, but her face falls when Dax gets closer and lets her see the deepening lines under her eyes.

“Don’t ask,” Dax tells her, and trudges wearily over to her console.

To her credit, Kira does as she says. She doesn’t ask; she doesn’t say anything at all, in fact. She just saunters casually over to Dax’s side about ten minutes later, using the excuse of some mutterings about starting a scan of Bajor’s next moon, and lets her hand linger like a weight at her hip, silent and subtle but steadying just the same. The wordless strength lingers like a lent gift, even after Kira is called away to talk schedules with Odo, and the sensory memory is enough to keep Dax standing through the rest of her shift.

But then, of course, inevitably the night comes down, and she has to go through the whole frustrating game all over again.

She doses up with what’s left of the hypo, not because she expects it to make the least bit of difference, but because she feels she owes it to Julian to give him the benefit of the doubt and try his methods a second time. It’s even worse now than it was before, though, and when she tries to lie down on the bed, the pitching and yawing of the room is almost unbearable, swaying in tandem with the dull pounding behind her eyes. She doesn’t even try to close them this time, irrepressibly afraid of what will happen if she does, and so she lies awake instead. She stays there half the night, staring wide-eyed and uncomfortably up at the celing, reeling against the headache and the twitchiness, counting out the seconds as they pass, minutes stretching out into hours, and wondering if this is what insanity tastes like.

It’s oh-four-hundred hours when she finally gives up. She's feeling cold and tired, wretched and thoroughly miserable, and she mutters a curse in Klingon as she rolls out of bed, feet flinching as they touch the floor, and throws on a fresh uniform.

She knows better by now than to head up to Ops and try to make herself useful; if Benjamin is still up there (which, no doubt, he is; he’s never been one for taking a break even when he needs one), he’ll just tell her in no uncertain terms to go away and not come back until her shift is due to start. If he’s not… well, no doubt she’ll just end up standing sulkily in a corner and playing mediator while O’Brien has another lover’s tiff with the stupid computer or making small-talk with Odo while he checks the security systems for the thousandth time this week. Neither of those options is particularly inviting, to be honest, and so she racks her brain for an acceptable Plan B, or C, or D, or…

…well, whatever damn letter she’s up to by now.

She’s also (just about) smart enough to know not to try Quark’s at this time of night. As much as she enjoys those all-night Tongo sessions when she’s in the right frame of mind, she knows the sly Ferengi well enough by now to know that he wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of her weakened sensibilities. He’s not as merciless as some of the others think he is, she knows, but he is a profiteering opportunist just the same, and he’s like a shark to blood when he scents even the faintest trace of vulnerability in anyone. Dax enjoys his company, she really does; she even appreciates the way he’s so unabashedly honest about his Ferengi roots. He’d sell his own mother for a profit, she has no doubt, but at least he’d be up-front in admitting it, and she respects that. Still, though, the fact remains that if he suspects for even a second that her perceptions might not be at their usual level, he will bleed her dry a hundred times before he stops to ask, even once, whether she’s all right.

Not that she needs someone to ask if she’s all right, anyway. She’s had enough of that from Benjamin over the last couple of days, and it’s already starting to get on her nerves. He’s a good friend and he’s shaping up to be a good commanding officer too, but all of that _“are you sure you’re all right, old man?”_ is bordering on suffocating now, and she’s pretty sure it’s just making the whole thing worse anyway. She’s on edge all the time, not just because of her situation but because she feels like she’s constantly waiting for the next interrogation, and it’s only lending more fuel for the jittery tremors in her hands and the unyielding tension at the base of her neck. Honestly, Quark’s born-and-bred Ferengi ruthlessness would probably be something a relief next to all that cloying concern; she knows where she stands with him, and it’s never on ceremony. At the very least, she knows that the cut-throat businessman wouldn’t spend all night, as Benjamin would, shooting her that same miserable look, drowning her in patented Sisko pity, those sad eyes and that downward curve of his lip, every inch of him telling her in no uncertain terms that he’s so very sorry he can’t make her feel better just by willing it to be so.

The thing is, though, Dax has lived for long enough by now to know that some things just can’t be fixed that easily. She’s a cock-eyed optimist, yes, but she would never expect miracles. Dear Benjamin, for all of his wisdom and experience, still secretly does, and it simultaneously fortifies and breaks her heart to see that he’s still not been broken of that blind faith. Somewhere underneath those polished commander’s pips and that nobly heroic frown is still the hopeful young man that Curzon knew so well, the fledgling Starfleet officer, so much like Julian, who took up the uniform because he wanted to do some real good in a chaotic and untamed galaxy. In a way, she knows that wide-eyed young Benjamin, the hopeless romantic, far more intimately than she knows this almost-hardened commander she’s working with now, the man with less hair and a stronger jaw. She may be the one in a new body, but Benjamin’s been through some metamorphoses of his own, and it’s unnerving sometimes to see.

She knows he’s still in there, that bright young lad with stars in his eyes and hope in his heart; it’s not so easy to still the pulse of an optimist like Benjamin, and she can see it beating ever strong within him in spite of everything he’s been through. And yes, she knows how much it kills him that he can’t fix everything that’s ever been wrong with anyone just by waving his hands and thinking good thoughts; it kills her, too, knowing as she does how much her discomfort upsets him, but the fact is there’s nothing either of them can do about it.

Ultimately, it’s just the way it is, and it can’t be helped. Like everything else in this crazy mixed-up universe, this too shall pass, but only in its own time, and there’s nothing that she or Benjamin or anyone else can do about it until that happens. It will pass when it passes, and Benjamin just needs to accept that.

Julian, of course, is exactly the same. No, actually, he’s even worse, and that’s why she won’t go back to the infirmary. Far more than her own distaste for the place, she’d gladly suffer through all this relentless insomnia just to spare his feelings. Because she knows him — not as well as he’d like to know her, no doubt, but certainly well enough to know how his young mind works — and she knows that he’ll take it personally if he finds out that his cocktail of sedatives didn’t work. She won’t put him through that, not when he tries so hard and always feels so bad whenever he gets something wrong. Julian really is a puppy sometimes, and if he thinks he’s let her down, he will blame himself for her discomfort as surely as Benjamin blames his own imagined shortcomings for every bad thing that ever happened to anyone in his lifetime. Dax really doesn’t want that on her conscience, thank you very much, and so she’ll do what she’s always done: power through as quietly and unobtrusively as she can, riding out the storm until it dies down, watching and waiting for the universe to expand once more and life to take on a different shape. It’s just a little sleeplessness, after all.

So, no, she won’t go back to the infirmary, and she won’t tell Julian that his sedative was useless. No matter what happens, no matter how the others react, or how vicious her temper gets. No matter how much Benjamin stares or Kira glares or O’Brien curses, she will not go back there until she absolutely needs to.

For right now, though, that only leaves one option. At least, that’s what she tells herself, and it’s as good an excuse as any to explain why she finds herself inexplicably outside Major Kira’s quarters.

It just makes sense, she thinks, clasping her hands behind her back to keep from wringing them; it’s not that she’s nervous, of course, it’s just that she feels awkward about showing up uninvited at oh-four-hundred hours on the doorstep of one of the most notoriously private people on the station. It’s not exactly good etiquette, but she convinces herself that it’s okay just the same, that it’s fine because it makes sense. Isn’t it the only logical option, after all? Isn’t Kira the one who understands all of this, and isn’t that reason enough to seek her out now?

That’s true enough. More than anyone else on the station, Kira knows how Dax is feeling. She has endured, survived, and suffered. More than anyone else, Kira has _lived_. She has seen things that even Dax, in all her lifetimes, can’t even fathom, and she knows far better than anyone what it is to power through a terrible night.

And yes, that’s true enough. Every word of it is true. But it’s not really the truth.

The truth, such as it is, is that she finds herself outside Kira’s quarters because that’s exactly where she wants to be.

She can’t explain it, but however far they wander, her thoughts always seem to come back here, back to Kira. Those tentative touches, hands at her hip and back and waist, fingers wrapping around her own, comforting but not consoling, sensory memory alight under her nerves. More and more as the hours turn to days, it seems that thinking about it is the only thing that stills her hands when they start to shake, that soothes the twitching when it starts, balms the jittery restlessness, makes her breathing a little less strained. Dax is not really a dependant sort of person, at least not while she’s Jadzia, but something about the way Kira looks at her, the way she touches her, the hard-soft cloud-like shadows in her eyes… they stick in her mind, lodged at the edges of her consciousness like a bone in her throat or the memory of a sweet taste that refuses to leave. She could be dependent on that, she thinks, and even Jadzia’s pride wouldn’t mind.

It won’t leave her alone. Over and over again it plays in her mind. The light, fleeting touches, unprompted but not unwelcome, the uncharacteristic softness even in the callouses on her hands, the whispered promises of courage in contact that barely lasts a moment but still lingers longer than it needs to, the empathy that comes so hard to any Bajoran, much less one like Kira, the extended olive branches and tight-lipped offers of companionship… the way she doesn’t turn Dax away, even though they both know she easily could, the way she falls back so quickly, so reflexively, on hollow reassurances to justify in her own mind all the fabricated reasons why she doesn’t, the way she hides behind words like ‘duty’ and ‘Lieutenant’ and ‘common sense’ like a child, as though kindness, compassion, and empathy are crimes against nature, dirty words that need to be scrubbed clean by obligation and responsibility, as though she truly believes there is nothing good in her, nothing worthy of giving, as though she can’t fathom why Dax would turn to her instead of Benjamin, as though she doesn’t understand anything, when the truth is that she understands everything.

And there it is again. The plain and simple truth. Kira _understands_. Not just what it is to power through a terrible night, but all of it. Everything. The suffering, the wretchedness, the shame and self-loathing, the hatred and rage that can only be truly grasped by those who have suffered the shame of a weak body overpowering a once-strong mind, the horror and humiliation of not being good enough to overcome something so basic, so rudimentary, so stupid. She understands how Dax is feeling, not just physically but emotionally as well. She knows what it is to feel pathetic, to feel useless, to feel betrayed by her own weakness. She understands.

And that’s it. That’s all it is: Kira understands. She may not approve of the way Dax is handling it, but she does understand.

At oh-four-hundred hours on her third night in a row with no sleep, pumped full of sedatives that don’t work, exhausted and tearful and frustrated, that is the most beautiful thing Dax can think of.

*

When she presses the door chime, Kira doesn’t tell her to enter. That said, she doesn’t tell her to go away either; in fact, Dax doesn’t hear anything at all, and though she knows she really should know better than to expect a chorus of delight at her arrival, it still catches her a little off-guard when the door slides open on its own to reveal Kira standing there in her bed-clothes, gazing up at her with half-lidded eyes and a trademark scowl on her face.

“Dax.” The word is a sigh, impatient irritability touched by the faintest trace of curiosity. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

Dax closes her eyes for a moment; the corridor lurches beneath her feet and she braces against the door frame. “I know what time it is,” she affirms sadly, and lets the simplicity of the answer explain everything about her presence here.

When she opens her eyes again, Kira is looking at her. She’s not staring exactly, but there’s a scrutiny in her that says she’s trying to read deeper than the lines on Dax’s face, to see beyond the obvious exhaustion. She’s trying to figure out why she’s here, of all places, why she didn’t choose to go to Quark’s or back to the infirmary, or any of the half-dozen other places Dax dismissed before finding herself here. She’s trying to make sense of it all, trying to reason it through in her head, and it’s a long moment before she heaves another low sigh and takes an equally long step back. It’s not quite an invitation, at least not yet, but it’s a subtle dropping her of guard, a wordless assurance that, just as Dax knew she would, she understands.

Her expression shifts as she moves; the impatience doesn’t disappear entirely, but there’s an unmistakeable softening to it, as close to warmth as Dax has ever seen on someone dragged out of bed at oh-four-hundred hours. “Still no sleep?”

“Still no sleep,” Dax says in a ragged echo.

She sounds dreadful, hollowed out and worn down, and she feels exposed, like she’s been cut open, ripped apart right down to the bone, exposed and laid bare for Kira’s judgement. There’s no doubt in her mind that everything about her right now is screaming weakness to Kira’s attentive warrior’s eye — _‘never let them see you’re faltering!’_ — but she can’t bring herself to care right now, because ‘weak’ is exactly how she feels. Let Kira think she is; isn’t that why she’s here in the first place?

Maybe she does think she’s weak, or maybe she doesn’t. Either way, and with scarcely another moment’s hesitation, Kira finishes what she started, taking another step back and exposing her quarters completely, and this time, it is an invitation.

Dax doesn’t move. She peers blearily into Kira’s quarters, dimly lit and sparsely furnished, and realises that this is the first time she’s seen them. She’s not entirely sure what she expects to see, but she finds that she’s not the least bit surprised by what she does: a table, a chair or two, and, of course, a Bajoran shrine. It’s not much to look at — small and compact, it’s clearly built for portability — but it’s about the only thing in the room that gives any clue at all about its occupant. It’s more telling than everything else combined, and Dax finds herself staring at it, almost mesmerised.

Bajorans may be a traditional and spiritual people in general, but Kira Nerys is first and foremost a child of the occupation; she is Bajoran right down to her blood, and she will not let that be forgotten; the shrine stands as a proud testament to that side of her, the heritage she fought so hard to protect, but the rest of the room is bare. Personal keepsakes and nostalgic treasures are few and far between for someone who has lived the life that she has; to Kira, sentimentality is fool-heartedness, childish idealism that is simply unaffordable in a world torn asunder, and though the war is over now her living quarters reflect that feeling in stark and sad-looking monochrome. A shudder of sorrow spasms between Dax’s ribs, but she stifles the reaction because she knows Kira wouldn’t thank her for it.

Though Kira has certainly given her enough of an invitation by now, Dax doesn’t enter right away. She holds her ground, standing idle and silent where she is, her hands clasped loosely behind her back to hide the way they’re trembling. She could happily go in now, but she wants to hear the words spoken aloud before she does so. She knows that Kira isn’t one for standing on ceremony, any more than anyone else around here seems to be, but this is as much a gesture of respect as it is anything else; Kira is letting her into her quarters, the one corner of this one-time Cardassian stronghold that is hers and hers alone, and Dax knows better than most how sacred that kind of inner sanctum is for someone who has suffered as Kira has. The least she can do, she thinks, is allow her a second or two for the implication to sink in, and a moment to change her mind if she decides it’s too much.

She doesn’t, though. Dax isn’t even sure if she realises what she’s doing, because the impatience is back in full force as she glares up at her. “Well?” she demands. “Are you coming in or not?”

Dax nods, feeling her shoulders relax, and steps inside. She can feel Kira’s eyes on her, and makes a conscious effort not to be too obvious as she looks around. Maybe she’s earned a reputation for her inquisitive nature, and maybe that reputation is pretty well founded in truth, but curiosity is not why she’s here, and she doesn’t want to give Kira any reason to throw her out again; she’d be well within her right to do so, and they both know it. They’ll all have time enough to appraise each other’s quarters in the months and years to come; there’s no reason to risk souring a generous offer of companionship by being a discourteous guest. Bajorans don’t do anything without calculating the risks first — they have to, living as they have for so long — and Dax knows very well that Kira has made her invitation in good faith. _“You can come into my sanctuary if you must,”_ she’s saying, _“but if you dare to judge anything you see here, I will tear you to pieces.”_

Dax doesn’t doubt that she would, too, and she has no intention of putting the theory to the test. It may be true that she’s placing a lot of her own faith in Kira’s hands by showing up here as she has, exhausted and broken and close to tears, but Kira is laying just as much of herself at Dax’s feet too by letting her.

Naturally, then, she doesn’t comment on the decor. She doesn’t say anything at all, in fact, doesn’t even try to take a seat. If it were Benjamin’s quarters, or even Julian’s, she’d probably already be slouched in the most comfortable chair she can find, feet up on the nearest solid surface and a lazy grin on her face; she would already have made herself completely at home, settled down and comfortable, and no doubt insulted at least half their choices of furniture. It would have been friendly, amicable; it would have been banter, free and easy and relaxed. But Kira’s not Benjamin, and she’s definitely not Julian. She’s a Bajoran, and a living memory of the Cardassian occupation — a former criminal and a former victim, and both at the same time — and she deserves to be treated with the utmost respect. Dax will treat her home like the shrine that is its centrepiece: as something untouchably holy.

Sensing her reticence, Kira huffs a sigh. “Dax.”

“I’m sorry,” she says; it feels like the hundredth apology she’s been forced to throw down since all this insomnia nonsense started, but they always seem to come easier to her lips when they’re aimed at Kira than Benjamin or the others.

Kira shrugs it off, though, with a careless snap of her fingers. “Don’t be sorry. Just take a damn seat, for the love of the Prophets.”

“Oh.” Feeling awkward and gangly, unnaturally tall in such a small space, Dax does so. “Sorry,” she says again, before she can stop herself, then blushes; she can practically hear Tobin’s influence breathing down her neck, his social ineptitude and discomfort, and clenches her teeth against it. “I mean… well… not ‘sorry’. Not that I’m not sorry, I mean, it’s just, uh… well, you know…”

She’s acutely aware of the way that Kira is staring at her, cynical and disdainful, like she’s never even seen this strange stuttering Trill in her life, like they’re complete strangers to each other. “You’re starting to sound like Doctor Bashir,” she remarks, and it’s not a compliment. “I know you’re exhausted, Dax, but come on. It’s just me.”

It is just her, and Dax knows that. But her tongue feels heavy and strange in her mouth, and the apology is the only sound she can get out. She exhales, feeling her fingers twisting around themselves where they’re folded in her lap, and tries to force her thoughts into taking shape. She wants to talk, to explain why she’s here, to say anything at all except _“I’m sorry”_ , but she can’t form the concept of words, much less the sounds themselves. The room isn’t spinning here, and she doesn’t feel as unwell as she does when she’s alone, but there is a weight bearing down on her mind just the same, a pressure that mingles exhaustion with adrenaline and leaves her panting with too much energy and not enough strength.

“Dax,” Kira says again, and this time it’s gentler.

“I…” She bites down on her tongue until she tastes blood. willing herself not to apologise again. “Uh. Did I wake you?”

Kira opens her mouth. Even in her dizzied state, Dax can see the start of a _“yes”_ shaping itself on her lips, but she seems to think better than saying it aloud, and closes it again before it has a chance to escape. Instead, she shakes her head, but the lines of her jaw give away the dishonesty, sketching a hardened line of untruth that curves up until it reaches her eyes. It’s a thoughtful gesture, Dax supposes, but she’s far too stubborn to be thankful for the lie.

“I was up already,” Kira insists softly, but her voice trembles just a little and her eyes are locked tellingly on the floor.

“No.” Dax breathes a deep, heavy sigh. “You weren’t, and I’m…” The word catches, but it’s valid this time, and so she powers through and says it again. “I’m sorry.”

Kira looks up, then, and studies her; her face is all straight lines and jutting angles, underplayed tension scored out with pinpoint precision across her features, thoughtful but guarded, and Dax wonders what she sees when she looks at her. Kira’s beauty is suddenly striking, all the marks of her former life suddenly undercut by something softer and smoother, the first flickers of raw compassion, empathy for a fellow soul, neither Bajoran nor oppressed, and it is unimaginably beautiful on her. Dax’s face, she imagines, is a stark contrast; she doesn’t need to look at herself to know that her features have turned gnarled and worn, her whole body suddenly seeming so much older than Jadzia’s twenty-eight years, perhaps even older than Curzon’s hundred-plus. Her face is lined and cracked with exhaustion, a crosshatching of fatigue and strain and guilt, raw and unfitted, as unpleasant to feel as it must be to look at. It itches when she moves and hurts when she doesn’t, and she is so uncomfortable in her own skin that it’s little wonder Kira is uncomfortable too just from looking at her.

It was stupid to come here.

She’s on her feet before she even realises she wanted to stand up, and is halfway back towards the door before Kira catches up with her. “Don’t—”

“I should go,” she hears herself mumble. Her voice sounds distant, echoey, like it’s coming from a place far away from the rest of her, far away from here, and it leaves her bones trembling. The words themselves are unnecessary, pointless, but she says them a second time just the same, because the space between her mouth and her voice is like a quantum hum of static impossibility inside her head, because all she can do is hope that if she leaps across it, it will close. “I should… I should go. You probably want to go back to sleep or meditate, or… well I’m sure you have something more important to do than talk to me at oh-four-hundred hours… and, well, we both have to go on duty soon, so… I mean…” She closes her eyes, large white circles swimming behind her eyelids. “I should go.”

When she opens them again, Kira is reaching for her, one arm extended to its fullest length, even as the rest of her body hasn’t moved at all. There’s a strange kind of discomfort on her face, Dax notes, like she’s not quite in control of herself, like her body is acting of its own accord, independent of her mind. “Dax.”

Despite herself, Dax turns back. “Hm?”

“Do you want…” Kira starts, but falters. She takes a deep breath, swallows hard, as if to summon courage, then tries again. “Would you like me to pray for you?”

In her dazed and dizzied state, Dax doesn’t understand the question. “What do you mean?”

Kira flushes a little; suddenly she’s the one who’s nervous. “I know you’re not Bajoran, and you probably don’t… I mean, I know it’s not your…” She spreads her arms, at a loss. “Well, anyway. If you want, I thought I might ask the Prophets to help you get some sleep.”

Dax blinks again, but this time it’s not with miscomprehension. The offer one of the most genuinely touching things she’s ever heard, at least in Jadzia’s short life, and she finds herself utterly at a loss for words. She may not have Kira’s boundless Bajoran faith — hell, she may not even believe in the Prophets at all — but that doesn’t change the fact that Kira does. She believes in them with every fibre of her being, with every breath in her body, every beat of her heart, every thought and dream and vision in every part of her. She believes in them, completely and unconditionally, and that she’s offering to share that faith with someone like Dax is generous beyond words.

Dax knows how important faith is to the Bajoran people. She knows enough about the occupation to know that, for many of them, their faith in the Prophets was the only thing keeping them alive. More than that, though, she knows how important that faith is to Kira herself; they’ve never talked about it, of course, but Dax is old and wise and she can see the unshakable ferocity of it in every line on the major’s face. She knows how much the Prophets mean to her, how desperately she has clung to them, how passionately she must have prayed. She knows how fervently Kira has held on to her beliefs through the worst imaginable things, how completely she’s wrapped herself up in the Prophets and their teachings, how she’s used her faith as a bandage for the scars and bruises the occupation left on her soul. The very foundation of her existence was crumbling all around her, but she held on to her faith because it was all she had to keep her strong. 

There are many people on Deep Space Nine, and most of them Starfleet officers, who don’t hold to faith the way the Bajorans do. Dax has heard them muttering to themselves on the Promenade, shaking their heads and rolling their eyes, disdain pouring off them in waves, and to hell with anyone they might upset with their judgement. It’s primitive, some say, while others just think it’s stupid. Dax isn’t nearly so narrow-minded; she can’t pretend she feels the same way as the Bajorans do, and she certainly doesn’t hold to the same beliefs, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t respect that they do. Dax herself may not feel the need for higher beings to direct and dictate her life choices, but the Bajorans do, and they have lived and fought and suffered enough that it is their right to do so. They won’t find any judgement in her. None of them will, and certainly not Kira.

And yet, it seems that she’s expecting it. It’s obvious by the way she suddenly ducks her head, biting down on her lip, uncharacteristically uneasy. She’s waiting for the judgement, not just a polite _”no, thank you”_ , but flagrant flat-out mockery, cruel words and a crueller laugh. She’s waiting for Dax to roll her eyes, shake her head and snap off a bitter jibe, _“I don’t need your precious Prophets messing with my life, thank you very much”_ , or maybe even something worse than that.

Though she’s invited Dax into her quarters, her only sanctuary, the closest thing to a haven she’s had in years, possibly her whole life, she still expects that judgement; she has opened up her doors and herself in the middle of the night, let her in and let her see the place where she lives, the space she sleeps in, the world that is as close to hers as anything she’s ever known, even the shrine that is the symbol of everything she is. She’s let her in, let her see it all, and yet she still expects that Dax will turn around now and judge her for the most sacred thing she possesses. It’s tragic, almost violently so, and there’s a sudden lump in Dax’s throat that, for once, doesn’t spawn from her own exhaustion, the swimming of her senses or the pounding in her head, a scream of pain that is nothing to do with her own suffering and everything to do with the flinching way that Kira is trying not to look at her.

Maybe she doesn’t understand so much after all.

Dax takes her hands, one of Kira’s in each of hers. She doesn’t say anything at first, waiting until Kira raises her head, tears her eyes from the floor and locks them with her own. She waits because all of this matters, because it’s as important for Kira to see the sincerity on her face as it is for her to hear the words. She smiles when it happens, holds Kira’s gaze with a heat and intensity that threatens to set them both ablaze, and searches for her voice.

“I’d like that,” she whispers, and she means it.

*

By the time she gets on duty, the moment is all but forgotten, lost to the haze of exhaustion.

Even the most rudimentary tasks are becoming a struggle now. The console blurs and flickers in front of her, and it seems to take every ounce of strength she has just to try — and, more often than not, fail — to focus her eyes on the endless stream of data as it pours like paint across the screen. It’s hard enough at the best of times to make sense of anything in the computer systems as they are; Chief O’Brien is still working at making the Cardassian circuits a little more Federation-friendly, but he’s not had too much success just yet, and until he does, it’s damn near impossible to get anything out of them. Federation software is primitive enough to a Trill at the best of times, but here on Deep Space Nine, it’s even worse; the glitching software constantly needs to claw its way through Cardassian hard-wiring until neither of them has a clue what they’re supposed to be doing, and it’s driven Dax to distraction on more than one occasion, even before the sleeplessness started testing her temper.

It’s hard enough at the best of times to get any sense out of the computer, but right now it’s starting to feel almost impossible. She can barely even see the numbers at all, much less wrap her mind around what they’re supposed to mean, and she knows that she has a job to do, knows what to expect when she sees the text and figures skip and skim across the screen, but she can’t process any of it any more.

She feels kind of like the computer system must do, all overflowing with errors and viruses and glitches, conflicting input coming from too many different sources in too many different languages until it’s all a grinding squeal of data, like her brain needs a good defragmentation… or, better yet, a complete system shutdown.

At some point in the afternoon, Chief O’Brien stops by her post; she’s not entirely sure what the time is, but the day already feels like it’s gone on for a decade, and that’s about as much as she can stand to care. He looks pretty worn out, too, but in a good way, face marred by the well-won battle-scars of a job well done; Dax remembers that feeling well, and she misses it. No doubt he’s been hip-deep in wires and conduits, and she can tell by the weary satisfaction that crinkles under his eyes that he’s feeling pretty pleased with himself. Whatever he’s been doing, she can tell, he’s done it well. There’s still a long way to go, of course, and still so many things about the station in need of attention and repairs; though they’ve been here for a while now, there are still parts of the station in complete disrepair, and they’re working as hard and as fast as they can to get them fixed, but of course these things take time. Still, though, if the look on his face is anything to go by, it seems that they’re finally making some kind of progress, at least in something. At long last, and for perhaps the first time since they came on board, more stuff actually works than needs fixing. It’s quite an accomplishment.

At any rate, O’Brien’s self-satisfaction seems to radiate out, infecting almost anyone who comes into contact with him; he’s good at that, Dax has noted, infecting anyone around him with whatever mood he’s feeling, and absorbing theirs in turn. If she didn’t know better, she’d wonder if there was some Betazoid in him. When he passes Dax’s console and catches the look of worn-down dissatisfaction on her face, it seems to set off a sympathetic reflex in him, taking a little of the smugness out of his smile, and he drops a friendly hand onto her shoulder.

“Problem, Lieutenant?” he asks, cocking his head towards the console. Dax huffs a sigh, but doesn’t answer. “If I might make a little suggestion… could you maybe let me take a look at it this time, before you try and beat the life out of it?”

Forced to remember yesterday’s embarrassing display of temper, Dax squeezes her eyes shut and pinches the bridge of her nose. “About that…” she starts tiredly, but O’Brien waves it away.

“Think nothing of it,” he says cheerily. “If I had a drink for every time I wanted to kick some sense into that bloody machine…”

Dax forces a laugh, but it’s dry and rasping, as unpleasant to the ears as it is in her throat. “Well, remind me to buy you one the next time we’re both at Quark’s.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” he says with a grin.

Dax, of course, has no doubt that he will. O’Brien is nothing if not a typical Irish drinker (at least, on the rare occasion that he gets his wife’s permission to be), and he would sooner stick his head in a leaky plasma conduit than miss out on a free round. For the moment, though, they’re both on duty, so he shunts the offer aside with his usual flair for focus, humming thoughtfully as he studies her console.

“So, what seems to be the trouble?” he asks. “Is it trying to tell you that the command centre doesn’t exist again? Because there’s a trick to—”

“No,” she says, cutting him off a little more sharply than she’d intended. Normally, she’d be more than happy to listen to him wax lyrical about all the tips and tricks he’s worked out — she’s a scientist, too, and she shares his love-hate relationship with the computer — but she just doesn’t have the constitution for it right now. “The computer’s actually behaving itself, for once. No complaints today.” His grin gets even bigger at that, and the tiny part of her that can still remember how to feel good about anything swells with pride. “It’s nothing really, Chief. I’m just having a little trouble focusing, that’s all.”

He looks at her, then frowns. “Well, no wonder,” he remarks. “You look terrible. When’s the last time you slept?”

“Oh, you don’t want to know,” Kira quips from her post. It’s rather mean, but Dax bites her tongue and ignores it.

“Have you talked to Bashir?” O’Brien presses, good-naturedly curious.

Kira actually laughs at that, and it’s almost loud enough for people to actually hear. “You don’t want to know,” she smirks again.

“It’s not funny,” Dax whines.

She knows the jibe was meant mostly in kindness (and, to be honest, even if it wasn’t, Dax is hardly the person to judge anyone for making inappropriate quips), but she’s too tired and miserable and feeling too damn sorry for herself to take it that way. Kira’s expression softens at her protestation, though, and her eyes turn dark with something that’s almost sorrowful. It’s not quite regret, and it’s definitely not an apology, but it’s different from her usual stoic sarcasm, and it tugs at the places inside Dax that can still make some kind of sense of the world around her. Kira isn’t one for making amends, even if she has over-stepped the line, but the sudden fretfulness on her face speaks volumes.

“I know,” she sighs, and all of that emotion rushes out of her in a wave. “It’s not funny at all. I’m sorry, Lieutenant.”

“It’s okay,” Dax replies. She tries to smile, but her face isn’t strong enough to lift her lips, and she shakes her head instead, glancing back at the chief with a casual shrug that pulls achingly at her muscles. “Besides, she’s right. You really don’t want to know.”

O’Brien’s gaze flicks from her to Kira and back again. He chews thoughtfully on his lip, and opens his mouth once or twice, like he wants to ask a question but has to try and summon the courage to try. Dax certainly wouldn’t turn him away if he’s that interested in her troubles, but she suspects that Kira probably would, and it’s the Bajoran’s piercing stare that ultimately makes up his mind for him. He closes his mouth and lets the matter drop with a delicate little cough, swiftly returning his attention to the computer terminal, hiding behind the safe barrier of stuff he actually knows something about. He makes a show of prodding at the terminal, studying with his usual scrutiny and humming like he really thinks there’s anything he can do for her.

“Well,” he offers after a few moments. “If you want, I’ll take a look and see if I can maybe tweak the resolution or something?” Dax frowns her confusion, and he shrugs. “We’re long past the days of old Earth fonts, I’m afraid, so if that’s what’s bothering you, there’s not much I can do about it… but I’m sure I could tinker with it a bit, see if I can’t make it a wee bit less blurry for you?”

It won’t do any good, Dax knows — her problems have nothing to do with the resolution of the screen, or its ‘font’ or brightness or any of the rest of it — but it’s sweet of him to try just the same. So, just as she did with Kira’s offers of prayer, she accepts the offer for what it is, a thoughtful gesture meant to make her feel better. It’s a particular sort of soul, she’s learned, that accepts an apology by extending a kindness in return, and she knows better than to turn away that breed of generosity when it’s shown, no matter how ineffectual it is.

“Thanks, Chief,” she says, nodding. “I’d really appreciate it.”

To her surprise, whatever ’tinkering’ he tries on her console does actually have some small effect. Not much, of course, but a little. It doesn’t do anything to ease the exhaustion, the itching of her brain, the dull ache behind her eyes, the blurring of her vision and the throbbing headache that has become as natural to her as breathing by this point. It doesn’t magically cure her of all the things her restless insomnia have wrought on her body, or the thickness of her thoughts, or any of the rest of it. What it does do, however, is make it just a little less excruciating to have to stare at the damn computer all day long.

When he’s finished, he moves on without another word, but a little later she hears him talking with Kira. Their voices are hushed and low, like they’re trying to keep secrets, like they really think she can’t hear every word they’re saying, like they think she’s so stupid she wouldn’t know they were talking about her anyway. It’s obvious, almost offensively so, and not just because between them they’re probably the most unsubtle people on the whole damn station.

They don’t say anything about it to her face, of course — what they lack in subtlety, they at least make up for in common sense, she supposes, and neither of them is willing to risk pushing her buttons given the mood she’s in — but O’Brien brushes her shoulder again as he passes her station on his way to the turbolift, a clumsy half-touch that could be accidental but probably isn’t, and Kira is staring at her from her post, so intently that it’s a miracle her eyes haven’t popped right out of their sockets.

Dax sighs, wishing she could ignore them both. Honestly, by this point, she’s kind of wishing she could ignore everything, or even anything, even just for a second or two. Her head spins and her vision swims; she’s well past the point of irritation by now, and into wretched desperation, hyper-aware of everything going on around her but with senses too dull to make sense of any of it, and she’s frankly too tired to care any more whether people are gossiping about her or not. Let them do what they like; if she’s the most interesting thing they have to talk about, then she envies them their uneventful lives. She really doesn’t care what they talk about, or whether they have the common decency to be tactful about it, or anything else. She doesn’t care; she just _doesn’t care_. All she cares about — the only thing in the universe she cares about right now — is getting a little sleep.

It feels like the whole station knows what’s going on now. Everyone’s treading on eggshells around her, tiptoeing and whispering to themselves, touching her lightly on the arm or the shoulder, giving her looks that are simultaneously sympathetic and cautious, like they all want to tell her how sorry they are that she’s having such a hard time but are a little too frightened that she’ll rip their heads off if they try it. By her own admission, they may have a point; a day or two ago, she probably would have done just that. But she’s different now — not mellower, exactly, it’s just that she can no longer summon the strength to care — and she doesn’t have the energy or the patience left to feel insulted by their behaviour at all. They mean well, she knows, and she’s too exhausted to process anything more about it than that.

As the end of her shift draws closers, the hours dragging on and on into what feels like centuries (and she would know), she realises that she’s no longer even looking forward to getting out and going home. Where just a day ago she wanted nothing more than to get out of Ops and go back to her quarters, to curl up in bed with the lights down and the music up, to close her eyes and try to sleep, now she finds herself dreading the very same thing. What’s the point in even trying, she thinks with hazy indifference, when she already knows she won’t be able to sleep any more now than she has the last few nights? What good will it do her to go back to bed when she knows she won’t be able to relax no matter how hard she tries? What’s the damn point?

She can feel every ounce of enjoyment slipping away from her, every little thing that brought her some sliver of hope dissolving into nothing like sugar in Tarkalean tea, and she hates it; it hurts, worse even than the headache, to think that she’s become so frustrated, so miserable, so stripped of everything that makes her who she is. She hates that she’s so bitter, and hates even more that she doesn’t even have the strength to do something constructive with that bitterness. It’s bad enough that she has to feel it at all, but to feel it and not even be able to harness it, to have such painful negativity flowing like adrenaline through her too-thin blood, and be too tired to do anything with it? It’s maddening, and it upsets her far more than she cares to admit.

More than any of that, though, she hates the thing she’s becoming, this hollow shell of a soul with no presence of mind left at all, this burned-out husk of something that, once upon a time, held a bright-eyed optimist. Dax is the one person living on this end-of-the-galaxy space station who has always been able to find the good in every situation; when Benjamin is wringing his hands over the politics of wormhole transportation or Kira is raging about Bajoran politics, when O’Brien is swearing at the computer system or Bashir is lamenting the lack of sick and injured in his infirmary, Jadzia has always been there with a quick word and a quicker smile to cheer them up. She’s always been the bright spark in every room, the beacon of contentment who enjoys nothing quite so much as calming those around her, the ever-cheerful science officer, the worldly Trill who’s been through enough lifetimes to know how important it is to take each one by the throat. She’s always been _Dax_ , taking each second as it comes, living and loving every moment like it’s the last she’ll ever see.

Now, though, she just feels hollow. Not empty, exactly, not the kind of shattering loss that she’d feel if anything ever happened to the symbiont inside her, but hollow just the same. Void. Like something has reached into her chest with a blunted blade, carved out all the parts of her that were able to feel, and left her with nothing. Like her heart and her soul and her mind have all been numbed, like Julian has pumped her full of analgesic (full, yes, but not full enough) but miscalculated the dosage. She feels like half of her is under sedation, and the other half has been shot through with adrenaline, and her head is too fuzzy to think through so much juxtaposition.

Her shift ends at eighteen hundred hours, but she can’t bring herself to leave. The thought of another night’s failed attempt to sleep haunts her, drives her almost to the point of insanity, and she wants nothing more than to stay here at her post, pretending to be useful and giving her fellow officers something to gossip about. Even if she can’t function at all, even if she’s utterly useless, it’ll be better to stand here like a vegetable than go back to that lifeless, soulless limbo, that purgatory of tossing and turning and not even being able to close her eyes. Anything’s better than that, even this, even the blurry lines of nonsensical data streaming blindly across her console screen, even the hushed whispers of O’Brien and Kira and everyone else, even—

“Dax.”

She doesn’t need to turn around to know it’s Benjamin; she’d recognise that voice from a thousand light-years away. “I just need to finish this…”

“It can wait till tomorrow,” he says, firm but gentle, and when his hand drops onto her shoulder, it’s heavier than O’Brien’s and more forceful than Kira’s. “Time to get some rest, old man.”

Dax shakes her head, close to tears. “I can’t.”

“I know.” He breathes a deep sigh, weighted with empathy. “But try anyway.”

It takes every iota of her faltering strength to make it back to her quarters, and by the time she gets there, there’s nothing left in her at all. Her legs give way, and her arms aren’t strong enough to brace and break her fall. She hits the floor hard, and stays there, standard-issue Cardassian carpeting burning its pattern into the side of her face, and she can’t even bring herself to care. What does it matter? What does anything matter?

She hits the floor at nineteen hundred hours. Four minutes later, she starts to cry, and she doesn’t stop until morning breaks over her quarters like a klaxon.

*


	4. Chapter 4

Back on duty the following morning, she goes through the motions. She tries, and tries hard, but the truth of her situation is plain and clear for anyone to see: she can’t even do her job any more.

Every muscle in her body aches, the kind of full-body agony that usually only comes after days on end of non-stop combat. She recognises the fire in her legs, her arms, her back, and clings to the memory of times when that fire was ignited by hard work and brutality, when it spawned from a battle hard-won or a ruthless training session, anything that was actually worth hurting for. She knows this pain well, and until now it’s always a good pain; she’s come to associate it with joy and accomplishment, the sweet ache of being alive, of being at one with her own body. It doesn’t feel like that at all now, though, and that’s what really hurts. There’s no satisfied throb, no adrenaline humming through her veins, no sheen of sweat or thirst for rehydration; she’s not coming out of a training session or a battlefield, and there’s no blood or bruises to mark the occasion. There’s nothing in her at all, in fact; she just feels flat and lifeless, wan and sick. This pain doesn’t feel like the pride of a battle well fought or a victory hard won; it feels like old age, like a slow and torturous death.

What little effect O’Brien’s tinkering had on her console yesterday is long gone today; she can’t see straight enough to focus at all, no matter how well-lit or perfectly optimised her screen is. She appreciates the effort, but at this point he could probably renovate the whole damn thing, zoom right in on every letter, every number, every last pixel, and it wouldn’t make the least bit of difference. And what makes it so much more frustrating is the fact that it’s not his fault, but hers. She’s the one who can’t do her job now, not the computer, and she hates that. She hates that she can’t blame the machinery, can’t blame O’Brien, can’t blame anyone or anything but herself. The only blame here falls squarely on Dax’s shoulders, and it hurts almost as much to admit it as it does to stay standing.

She can’t even hold her body upright, much less her head, and it takes everything she has left in her — and, by her own admission, that’s not much — just to keep from collapsing right there in the middle of the command centre. She’s not just faltering now. She’s breaking, and there’s no amount of tinkering that can stop that from happening.

The well-trained Starfleet officer in her knows what she has to do. She hates that it’s come to this, but there’s no denying the fact: however much she wants to, she simply can’t do her job. She can’t see, can’t think, can barely even stand; she’s useless, dead in the water, and there’s just enough self-awareness left in her to know that there really is only one option now. The only thing she can do, the only thing that makes any sense right now, is for her to go up to Benjamin right this second and request a leave of absence until she can pull herself together. ‘Sick leave’ may not be a concept that Starfleet embraces, not least of all because there’s seldom any reason for it, but there’s always an exception to every rule, and Dax is smart enough to know that she is fitting neatly into that category now.

Of course, knowing it doesn’t make it any easier. There’s a kind of strength in knowing one’s weaknesses, and she’s learned that lesson more than a few times in seven lifetimes, but that doesn’t make it any easier when it happens. Dax has lived out seven lifetimes, but this is the most potently she’s ever felt the weakness of her body. She has been through more than most of her fellow officers can even imagine, not just in life but in death as well; she knows how it feels to die, again and again and in a broad spectrum of different ways, and even that doesn’t touch this. There’s not much you can do about death, after all, and Dax learned long ago just to lie back and let it happen, to hold on tight and hope that it doesn’t hurt too much this time around.

But then, of course, this isn’t death. This is just pain, and that makes it so much worse.

There’s a kind of solace to be found in the moment of death, a comforting kind of inevitability that wraps itself around the dying soul, blankets the failing body, and leaves the heart at peace. Dax is a proud, proud individual — Jadzia has always been that way, but she’s certainly not the only one of Dax’s hosts to bear that particular burden — and there are few things she’s been through that cut as deeply or strike as hard as failure. She doesn’t mind death, because death is not defeat; it happens to everyone, and the ‘where’ and ‘when’ and ‘how’ and ‘why’ is just semantics. For a joined Trill, every new death is a new experience, and there’s nothing to be feared or ashamed of in that. It doesn’t matter how she dies, or when, because it’s inevitable; no matter how she lives this life, it will end eventually, just like every other. She doesn’t waste her time thinking about death, not when she can live instead, and Dax has always met death with pride and joy. Even Torias, even knowing that he had so much to live for, so young and so exuberant, held his head high when his time came, bracing himself for the next step in the journey, content in having filled his own place in it. Death may not be final for a symbiont, but the loss of each host brings with it a new kind of peace — sad, of course, but beautiful and tranquil too, and Jadzia doesn’t fear hers any more than Torias or Curzon feared theirs. It will happen, and when it does, she will embrace it.

There is none of that peace here, though. There is no sense of inevitability to what she’s feeling, no certainty or comfort, and there’s definitely no tranquillity. All there is for her now is pain, and with it the constant reminder of her body’s weakness — of Jadzia’s weakness. Jadzia isn’t dying here, and that’s what makes it so terrible; she’s not flickering and fading, not making the transition from one to another or adding her own voice to the tapestry of symbiont memories; she’s just in pain, and miserable. This isn’t the endnote to Jadzia’s life, her contribution serving as another chapter in an ever-expanding volume of memories, and she’s not paving the way here for a new Dax to explore a new galaxy of life and love and experience; she’s not doing anything at all, only suffering and hating herself for it, and that is a pain that tastes too much like failure. It’s unpalatable, and it’s all she can do to keep from choking on it.

This isn’t Dax’s pain at all; Dax wouldn’t give in to this. This is Jadzia’s pain, and that makes all the difference.

It doesn’t help, either, that the symbiont’s last host was Curzon. Curzon Dax, who was tougher than nails, who fought alongside Klingon warriors, who had all the strength and the courage and the raw power of ten men. Curzon, who lived almost longer than all the symbiont’s other hosts put together, and with more vivacity too. Curzon Dax, who could kick even the toughest ass just by looking at it, who could march into battle, outnumbered and outmatched, and enjoy every second of his inevitable defeat. Curzon would never fall apart like this; he would have gone twice as long without sleep and still be strutting around this battered old space station with a grin on his face, a joke on his lips, and a drink or three in his hand. No weakness owned Curzon Dax, and a night without sleep was just a night well lived. If he saw his successor now, he would be disgusted.

Jadzia is nothing like Curzon was, and it hurts all the more because she remembers the look on his face when he washed her out. She should be proud, she knows — she is, after all, the only initiate in history to successfully reapply — but she’s not. All she can think of is Curzon shaking his head and telling her to go home, Curzon rolling his eyes and telling that her she’s not good enough, Curzon stripping her of everything she’d ever wanted her whole life. She’s always tried to make herself believe that she’s better than anything he ever saw in her, that she has proved time and time again that she deserved to be joined, that he was wrong and that’s why he let her back in; she’s told herself more times than she can count that she is worth everything Curzon was… but there’s a difference between saying something and actually believing it, and days like this are just bright glaring reminders of all the doubts inside herself that she doesn’t want to acknowledge.

Because no, Jadzia is not Curzon. Jadzia is a shy, nervous little girl who tries too hard and works too much, a washed out initiate who got lucky when she shouldn’t have gotten anything at all. She doesn’t deserve to be here; she doesn’t deserve to be joined at all, and she sure as hell doesn’t deserve to be joined with Dax. She has no right adding her voice to those of Curzon and Torias, to Emony and Lela and all the rest of them. Dax has lived so many lives, and all so rich with flavour and colour; who is quiet little Jadzia to imagine that she might have something to add to that?

Right now, she doesn’t feel like she’s anything at all. She’s letting down Curzon, yes… but so much more than that, she is letting down _Dax_. She’s letting down the symbiont, the most important thing in a joined Trill’s world; by not being strong enough to power through this thing, she’s letting herself down. In the most literal sense of the concept, she’s a disappointment to herself, and for a moment she imagines she can feel the symbiont squirming and wriggling inside of her, its unhappiness a writhing swirl of nausea deep in her belly. It’s impossible, she knows, but her imagination is wild (maybe that’s one thing little Jadzia can bring to the table, she muses dully, that sparkling flicker of vivacity in her childlike imagination), and she is so delirious right now that she’d swear the sensation was real.

A wave of vertigo pulses through her at the thought, powerful enough that it throws her off-balance. Blindly, she clutches at the console, flailing and desperate, and even so she almost misses it. The terminal is about the only thing keeping her upright by this point, her whole body hunched forward and bent almost double, and her knuckles are deathly pale as she braces against the surface, gasping for breath and struggling for strength.

“Dax?”

There’s a hand at her back, small but strong, and she can tell without even looking up that it belongs to Kira, because nobody else in the universe is that small and that strong at the same time. She takes a breath, then another, and shakes out the cobwebs in her mind. It’s bad enough that she’s feeling this way at all, but she will not allow Kira to see it in her any more than she has already.

“It’s nothing,” she manages, clinging to the lie like a lifeline. “It’s nothing, I’m okay.”

Kira exhales, hot breath that feels even hotter against the side of her throat, and Dax can tell that she’s not buying it. It’s to be expected, she supposes; Kira is as smart and sharp as a whip; she didn’t survive the Cardassian occupation by being gullible or easily fooled, so why should Dax expect her to be that way now?

“Dax.” She sighs, compassionate but hard as steel, and Dax knows what’s coming next even before she says it. “This is serious. You need to—”

“I know.” The confession is a moan, low and deep in her throat, and her whole body twists in brutal rebellion against it. “I know what I need to do, Major.”

“Then do it.” Kira’s voice is like a phaser, cutting through the shame and self-loathing with perfect precision, even as her hand offers nothing but steadiness and support right where Dax needs it most. She’s a contradiction, in this as much as in everything else she does, and if she were in a better state of mind, Dax would allow herself a moment to be amazed by it.

“I will,” she says instead, and it sounds as empty as she feels.

She tries to twist away, but Kira won’t let her. “Now, Dax. You’re not doing anyone any favours by dragging it out.” She exhales, not quite a sigh but close enough to sting where her breath strikes the line of Dax’s throat, and she cocks her head towards the distant silhouette of Benjamin, almost comical even from this distance as he tries not to look like he’s watching them. “Least of all, him. You know he’s been waiting for it.”

Dax does know that, and that just makes it all the more difficult.

Letting the symbiont down is one thing. Letting herself down is another. But letting down Benjamin Sisko? That’s almost a bridge too far, and her shoulders start to tremble just thinking of it. Benjamin knew Curzon; he knew the old man, the force of nature who was so much larger than life. He knew the hurricane of exuberance that was Curzon Dax, the impossibly strong soul who lived so long and saw so much, the relentless firestorm who never, ever backed down from anything. Benjamin knows the real Dax, the Dax that Jadzia always hoped she might one day become… but she is so far away from that Dax right now, so far away from Benjamin’s old friend, and it tears at what little is left unhurt inside her to know that she’s going to walk up to him now and do the one thing that Curzon never would: admit defeat.

Sensing the turmoil rolling within her, Kira lets her hand slide down to her hip. “Do you want me to—“

“No.” The word is firm, hard, spoken with far more authority than she actually holds, and with far more confidence too. “I mean… no, thank you. It’s sweet of you to offer, Major, but I can do it myself.”

Kira nods, and her hair tickles a little where it brushes against Dax’s shoulder, even through the fabric of her uniform. “All right,” she says. She lingers for another beat, until she’s sure that Dax can stand by herself, then finally pulls back completely. “But do it now, while you still can.”

Left alone, Dax takes a moment to brace herself. The computer console is slick and slippery beneath her palms, and she realises belatedly that it’s because she’s been sweating. It’s not common for a Trill to sweat, not common for them to be warm at all, but she is right now. Her hands are clammy and hot, fumbling to hold their purchase, and she feels a damp sheen forming at her brow as well. Her uniform is clinging, too, sticky at her chest and back, and she tries not to think too hard about what she must look like. It’s a miracle she’s here at all, she knows, and she’s faintly aware in some distant corner of her mind that the only reason she’s not been dismissed already is because Benjamin still respects Curzon too much to take that step.

Idly, she wonders how long this will endure; will Jadzia’s whole life be a sun-faded shadow of Curzon’s? Will she ever stand up in her own light? Will Benjamin ever respect her like he did her predecessor?

Probably not, if she keeps going like this.

She stumbles as she crosses the command centre, not once but twice, and she knows that that’s evidence enough of how necessary this is, but knowing it’s right doesn’t make the task itself any easier. He’s waiting for her, she can tell; it’s obvious by the tension in his shoulders, the stiff way he stands, the lines creasing his face as he watches her, the subtle clench of his jaw when she finally reaches his side and stands swaying before him. This is just as difficult for him as it is for her, if not even more so; he wants so desperately to believe that she has the potential to be everything his beloved mentor was, and it breaks him a little more every time she falls short. It’s humiliating for them both, and it rends her chest all the more fiercely to know that she’s disappointing him, that she’s putting her dear friend through the gauntlet of her shame as well.

“Benjamin?”

He sighs, the weary sound of someone carrying all the weight of the world on his shoulders, and gestures her into his office.

*

“You know what this is about.”

It’s not a question, because it doesn’t need to be, but Benjamin nods as though it were. Of course he knows what it’s about; it would be an insult to both of them to suggest even for a second that he might not. He has seen the way she’s declined over the last few days just as surely as she’s felt it; he’s watched the uncharacteristic aggression slipping into dumb confusion as the exhaustion gets worse, and he’s seen the way her performance has dipped and dropped, a slow-burning decline that’s only now starting to snowball into something serious, the way she’s started to struggle with even the most rudimentary of tasks, the way she can’t see, can’t think, can’t string a sentence together, can barely even stand. He’s watched her struggle with just as much torment as she has felt, and it would be an injustice to both of them to pretend that that’s not the case. It would belittle her own suffering, and the suffering he’s felt in empathy.

Of course Benjamin knows what this is about; he’s just been hoping, with every ounce of energy he has in him, that it wouldn’t be necessary.

For what little it’s worth, Dax has been hoping the same thing. Desperately, achingly, and with a pain that almost matches the screaming rebellion in her body, she’s been hoping that it wouldn’t come to this. More than anything in the galaxy, maybe even more even than she wants to sleep, she’s been praying for it all to be over so that they wouldn’t have to stand here and stare this in the face.

“I know what it’s about,” Benjamin confirms out loud; it may not be necessary to say it, but protocol is protocol.

She tries not to look at him, but his presence is like a supernova, and she can’t keep her eyes away. He’s always been like that, always wielded his charisma with diligence and respect; Curzon always said he’d make a wonderful diplomat, always joked that it was a shame he set his sights on command instead, and Jadzia supposes she can see where he was coming from. Benjamin Sisko is a presence unlike any she’s ever known, and where Curzon admired him with the benefit of age and wisdom, Jadzia is looking on him now as a weak-willed and small-minded inferior. She feels so much younger than she is right now, like the Curzon in her head has abandoned her completely, like all she can do is watch and drown in the sympathetic sorrow darkening Benjamin’s eyes as he studies her. She can almost hear him begging her to let him do this for her, to let him take the responsibility away from her, away from his old friend. He can’t do anything about this, they both know that, but he is begging her for the chance to at least make it a little easier.

She can’t let him do that, though. She may not be able to do her job any more, but there is still enough left in her to do this. Even if she can’t do anything else, if she goes back to her quarters after this and collapses, if she breaks down and breaks apart and breaks completely, she will go down knowing that, at the very least, she was able to do this. If it is the last thing this weak little girl’s body ever does, she will do it.

“Benjamin, I…”

But her body has other ideas, and the words die in her throat, impossibly dry.

Benjamin turns away, makes it easier on her by staring at the wall. “What is it, Lieutenant?”

With great effort, she closes her eyes, swallows down the acid, and tries again.

“Commander Sisko,” she says, and lets the title strengthen her where his name made her falter. “As you know, I’ve not been sleeping. I don’t know if there’s something wrong with me, or if it’s just stress or…” She catches herself, coughs delicately before she can start rambling. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever the reason, I’m sure you’ll agree it’s become apparent that, until the situation remedies itself, I’m not fit for active duty.” Not that it needed saying, she gives the announcement a moment or two to sink in just the same, using the silence to brace herself for the really hard part. “As a result, Sir, I feel I have no choice but to formally request that I be relieved of my post.” Her breath hitches in her throat. “Effective immediately.”

Benjamin sighs again, even deeper than before. For a moment, it looks like he’s going to turn around again, spin on his heels and just walk out on the conversation, order her back to her console and pretend that the whole unpleasant moment never happened.

He’s always been good at that, she thinks, always an expert in hiding from the things that really matter, doggedly determined to keep seeing what he wants to see whether it’s actually there or not. Curzon chastised him for it _ad infinitum_ , shaking his head and reminding him time and time again that, if he was serious about a career in command, he needed to learn to see what was there, no matter how unpleasant, warning him that it was his responsibility to see clearly even when his crew was blind.

Not that it ever did any good, of course; the damn young man’s stubbornness won out every time, and more often than not it was Curzon who was left scowling and huffing a half-hearted apology as Benjamin flash his triumph in a boyish grin. Benjamin Sisko is one of the most passionate, diligent, and fiercely devoted people that Dax has ever met, in any of her lifetimes, but she can see that helpless hopefulness surfacing in him again now, the youthful plea flickering on his lips like a dim shaft of light struggling for life in a world without sun, desperately striving to cut a path through the clouds and the dark and the rain, and it’s beautiful and tragic at the same time, but she wishes it wouldn’t shine so brightly into her eyes.

Because she knows, even if neither of them want to accept it, that it won’t work. Not this time. The situation is what it is, and no amount of hiding or hoping will change it for either of them. Dax thinks about saying something to that effect, maybe even repeating the request if it comes down to it (though in truth she’s not sure she has the strength to say it again); Curzon would do all that and more, she knows, dragging Benjamin back to reality with force and sternness… but she is not Curzon now, and even if she could bring out his temperament for a second or two, she knows it wouldn’t work in Jadzia’s voice. She would sound silly, young and clueless, and Benjamin would shake his head and roll his eyes, and everything she meant to tell him would die in the light of his eyes. She’s not Curzon, and she can’t do what he did.

So instead, because she is weak and small, because she is Jadzia, she does nothing at all, just stands there in front of him like a green ensign, with her hands behind her back and her head held as high as it will go (which, admittedly, isn’t very), and waits.

Finally, after a silence that stretches forever, he sucks in a deep breath. “Are you sure?”

She almost laughs at that, but she’s afraid that if she starts, she won’t be able to stop; she’s so close to hysteria right now, it’s almost dangerous. “Benjamin,” she chides instead. “Come on. Let’s not stand on ceremony. We both know I’m not fit for anything right now, and I don’t want other people depending on me when I can’t even…” She trails off, the words running away from her before she has a chance to shape them. “I’m not…”

He grips her by the shoulder, cutting off the effort. His touch is nothing like Kira’s; it’s strong and steady and, above all, deeply sad. “Old man.”

“Benjamin.” She’s close to tears again, but she will drop dead right here before she’ll let him see her cry. “I’m so tired, Benjamin. I’m just so tired…”

“I know.” And then, all of a sudden, he sounds just like Kira, authoritative and serious, businesslike on the surface but with a softness underneath that manages to cleave a path through all the rough edges and sharp corners, an out-of-place sweetness that is cloying in places and comforting in others. He’s not Benjamin here, but he’s not exactly Commander Sisko either; he’s something in between, and it’s simultaneously everything Dax doesn’t need and everything Jadzia wants. “I know you are.”

It’s not enough, and so she waits some more. Waits for him to concede, to see the tear-stained desperation in her, to feel the pain that overshadows even her pride — even Jadzia’s, even Curzon’s — and understand just how much it has cost her to do this. They both know how deeply Benjamin hurts when he’s forced to to see a friend in pain, and they both know how quick he is to blame himself for any suffering felt by an officer under his command. This is both of those things in his eye — failure as a friend, and fail as a commander — and it seems that it will take a moment or two longer for him to think beyond them, to close his eyes to his own guilt and look hard enough to see what’s right in front of him: the haze clouding her vision and her judgement, the state she’s in, the inescapable fact that this really is the only solution. It’s written all over her, in the sheen of sweat damp and cold on her brow, the twin lines of spots trailing down from her temples pale and sickly, the way her hands are shaking, the buckling of her knees. He’s seen her decline, just as surely as Kira has, but she knows him well enough to know that by accepting it he will be admitting it has beaten them both.

He needs a moment to get there. But that’s okay, because she needs one too.

And then it happens, too soon but not soon enough, that painful moment they’ve both been waiting for, the shuddering breath as his shoulders slump and his face falls and his duty as a commander casts a shadow over his feeling as a friend, the fractured heartbeat as he sees the pain branding scars behind her eyes and though he can’t understand as Kira does, he knows just the same, the agony as he sees her, as if for the first time, and knows beyond doubt that she’s dragged her beaten body as far as she can, that it’s over and she needs him to carry her over the line. She breathes that moment in, lungs on fire and heart fit to burst, and it’s like the star-soaked spacescape breaks open right in front of them both, light and relief flooding the room and filling the space between them.

“All right,” Benjamin concedes at last, defeat steeped in a sigh of pain. “Effective immediately, Lieutenant, you’re relieved of duty. Have Doctor Bashir send me a medical report on your condition as soon as possible.”

The words strike harder and deeper than she expects, and as tears prick her eyes she studies the light as it reflects in impossible prisms through the moisture pricking behind his, a soundless promise for them both. They’ll both cry after this, she knows, but not in front of each other. Never in front of each other.

“Dismissed,” he says.

Dax takes a shaky breath. “Thank you, Benjamin.”

*

She can feel everyone’s eyes on her as she leaves Ops, but her shoulders feel less burdened than they have in days, and she’ll take their silent sympathy in a heartbeat if it also means she doesn’t have to think any more. The idea of going back to her quarters and trying to sleep still haunts her, a weight almost heavier than she can bear, but even that feels lighter now than it did before, easier with the knowledge that, at least for the time being, the only person who will be affected by this is herself.

It’s not all good news, of course, and she’s not so naive as to pretend it is.

For a start, it means she can’t avoid going back to see Julian again, and she’s not looking forward to that visit one bit. Oh, he’ll be a doctor about it, dotting all the ‘i’s and crossing all the ’t’s; she has no doubt of that, or that he’ll take the greatest care in making sure sure everything’s in place for her discharge. But then, of course, almost before he’s done, he’ll turn away to key it into the computer, and he’ll shake his head and sigh, trying so hard not to be heard even as they both know it’s pointless, staring blindly at the computer with that sad little look on his face, like she won’t be able to see those kicked-puppy eyes reflected on the screen. She can see it all so clearly now, the thinly-veiled sorrow, like it’s some kind of personal slight against his medical training that she can’t do her job any more. She almost can’t bear to think of it, but she doesn’t have a choice.

It’s a necessary part of protocol, and she knew that when she went to Benjamin, but that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow now that it’s imminent. Or semi-imminent, anyway; honestly, she just can’t face the thought of dealing with it now. She’ll go, of course, because she has to… but not now. Protocol, and Julian, can both wait until tomorrow; she’s not going anywhere, and neither is he, and she frankly needs a little extra time to brace for the ordeal, the half-frozen infirmary and Julian’s too-warm hands. She shudders at the thought, and slumps sickly against the turbolift wall.

Knowing him, she thinks, he’ll insist on running about four thousand tests and scans on her, too, keeping her there until she’s at the edge of madness, closer even than she already is, and all in the name of ‘thoroughness’. He’ll scan her and test her and ask questions that they both know she won’t be able to answer, and then finally, after six or seven hours, he’ll shake his head, set down his tricorder, and sadly confirm that yes, she does indeed have a rotten case of insomnia.

It’s so predictable, it’s laughable. And yet, even so, there’s a tiny corner of her mind (probably the part that isn’t handling any of this particularly well) that can’t seem to stop wondering _’what if?’_. What if it’s not as simple as that? What if he finds something else instead, something serious, something that might actually go some way to explain all of this? What if he finds that, instead of simple insomnia there’s actually something wrong with her? What if it turns out she has some kind of rare and exotic disease? What if she’s caught something from one of the stations many visitors, from Quark or Morn, or someone else? What if it’s fatal? What if Jadzia’s life really is destined to end like this?

Well, then, the rest of her thinks, so what if it is? What if he does find out that there’s something really wrong with her? Won’t that be a relief? Won’t it be a weight off her shoulders to discover that this isn’t all in her head, that it isn’t just Jadzia’s weakness bringing shame to the legacy of Dax, that there’s actually a reason for it all? Wouldn’t it it bring her some comfort to know that she’s sick after all, that she’s not just exhausted and pathetic and half-crazy? It should do, yes, but then there’s the other side, the half-delirious cynic in her shaking its head. No, actually, it’s saying, that won’t help at all. Won’t it just twist the knife in a little bit deeper, the cynic demands, to know that she’s fallen prey to something else? Won’t it be the ultimate shame, the final humiliation, to discover that even after everything Dax has lived through, silly little Jadzia can’t even be trusted to survive five minutes in deep space without falling prey to some stupid infection or disease?

It’s a ridiculous thought, bordering on hysteria, and in her delirious sleep-deprived state she finds it utterly hilarious. The laughter it triggers is manic, hopeless and helpless and completely out of control, but there’s nothing she can do to stop it. Once the hilarity takes its hold, she’s lost; it’s like a vice around her throat, and Dax is helpless to do anything but laugh until she can’t breathe, until it hurts, until she’s sure she’ll choke, laugh and laugh and laugh and hope against hope that it will pass.

But, of course, like everything else, it never does, and this time, when she finally makes it to her quarters and starts to sob, the tears that threaten to ruin the rough Cardassian carpet are as much a product of laughter as they are of despair.

She sits there on her bed for hours, knees drawn up tight against her chest, laughing and crying and choking in random violent spasms, overwhelmed in one moment by the hilarious absurdity of her thoughts and overpowered in the next by the pain and frustration of it all. Her emotions are a tangled knot of chaos, spiralling out of control and running away from her, and there’s nothing she can do at all but ride them all out, tossed and turned and thrown about like a barely-grown Starfleet cadet taking a spin in zero gravity for the first time and learning the hard way that it’s not nearly as much fun as he thought it would be.

That’s exactly how she feels when her door chimes, and the noise snaps her back to herself exactly like a sudden jolt of normal gravity after all that Zero G.

For a moment, she thinks about ignoring the chime — after all, she’s hardly in any condition to entertain visitors — but she doesn’t. In the first, she knows Benjamin and the others well enough to know that they won’t give up if they’re that concerned about her, and in the second, she’s fairly sure that any kind of company would be good for her right now; even if it is Benjamin and his sympathetic face, she couldn’t possibly be any more miserable in his company than she is right now on her own. What’s the worst that can happen if Curzon’s old friend stops by to check up on her only to find that she’s slowly losing what little sanity she had left? He can’t very well relieve her from duty twice in one day, can he, so what’s the harm?

“Come in,” she rasps after a long beat.

Not for the first time, she finds herself faced not with Benjamin at all, but with Major Kira; it probably shouldn’t surprise her quite so much this time, but it still does.

Kira doesn’t wait for her to recover herself; without preamble, she presses a steaming cup into Dax’s hands. “I brought you some Tarkalean tea.”

Dax blinks, hazy and confused. “That’s very sweet of you.”

“I thought it might make you feel better,” Kira says with a shrug. “I know Doctor Bashir finds the taste soothing.”

Dax takes a cautious sip. Kira’s right about the beverage’s calming properties, she knows; she’s familiar enough with the drink itself, and understands the thoughtfulness of the gesture. The gentle tea is mild and sweet, a perfect choice for a sick friend, and it’s certainly a whole lot more forgiving to the constitution than Dax’s usual beverages of choice (extra strong raktajino for a good day, and extra strong bloodwine for a bad one). Kira has clearly thought the idea through very carefully, and as she swallows it down, Dax honestly does expect that it will ease some of her restless discomfort.

It doesn’t, though, and her stomach rolls unpleasantly and unexpectedly as the liquid splashes down her throat. The reaction takes her somewhat by surprise — she’s never had a weak stomach before, and this isn’t like her at all — but Kira is looking at her with the hopeful anticipation of a small child who has made a concentrated effort to do something nice for someone else and isn’t really sure how well it’s being received. She looks so hopeful, and ever so slightly nervous, and so Dax musters a smile and forces down another couple of mouthfuls, stopping only when she’s sincerely afraid for her stomach and setting the cup carefully down on the bedside table.

“It’s very thoughtful,” she says again. “Thank you.”

Kira grunts, acknowledging the point and then dismissing it just as quickly; heaven forbid she let herself dwell on such things as kindness or generosity, Dax thinks sadly.

“It was no trouble. I had to pass by the replimat on my way here, so…”

“I’m sure you did,” Dax says easily. “But I appreciate it just the same.”

Kira nods, then turns away, tangibly awkward. “How are you feeling?”

That’s just typical of her, Dax thinks dully. She has eyes, so she must be able to see the answer for herself, but she asks it anyway because it distracts them both from the idea that she might have done something nice for someone. Even with the answers clearer than starlight and right there in front of her face, she asks anyway because it’s all she feels she can do.

It’s sad, but Dax supposes it’s understandable too. Kira is not designed for this sort of thing, empathy and emotion, feeling instead of thinking, and she’s certainly not equipped for giving gifts or sharing those feelings in any way that can be measured. Emotion comes with great difficulty to her, and empathy even more so. Living the life she has, Dax supposes it makes sense; allowing the weakness of feeling in a world torn apart by war and destruction is at least as dangerous as a Cardassian soldier. Sentiment always comes with a price, or at least it always has before. For someone like Kira, even thinking of admitting that she might care about someone is opening herself up to the fact that she will lose them. It’s not a question, a doubt or a fear lingering in the back of the mind like it is to optimists like Julian or Benjamin. For Kira, loss and grief are a simple fact of life: it’s not a matter of ‘if’ she will lose her loved ones, but of ‘when’.

Dax knows that feeling pretty well herself, as it happens. For a joined Trill, everything — death included — is always a matter of ‘when’. Just like Kira, there’s never been a question in Dax’s mind of whether or not a friend or a lover will die; it’s simply a case of who will die first. To someone like Dax, that makes the beauty of feeling all the more precious. It becomes a blessing, a gift to the symbiont building up memories inside her. It’s the most incredible thing in the universe to live and love and share like that, to leave such a precious brand upon her piece of the symbiont’s life.

For Dax, losing loved ones isn’t about who will mourn the loss more, who will be left behind to grieve and cry, to dress in black and cut their clothes, but of who will be first to see their memories transcend to the next phase of existence. The life of a joined Trill is like an ever-expanding universe, people and lives and thoughts and memories all building on top of each other, over and over and over, and the more souls that enrich any one of those lives, the more beauty will live on in the next one. Loss is always hard; it’s always a reason to shed tears, to grieve and to mourn, but that doesn’t mean it’s always a bad thing. Dax knows that very well, because she has loved and lost and loved again more times than she can count. She knows how to rebuild, to wrap the memories of beautiful people and beautiful things around her heart, how to embrace the memory of having felt something new and precious and wonderful. She knows how to deal with loss, to hurt and celebrate in equal measure, to feel the pain at a loved one’s passing, and joy that they came to pass in the first place.

But then, Dax is old and wise, and Kira is not.

Kira doesn’t understand loss the way Dax does. To her, it’s just another kind of brand waiting to burned into her; it’s just one more kind of pain, one that hurts in her most vulnerable places, and she has felt too much hurt in other places to wilfully open herself up to it there too. Grief is a weapon, a blade flashing in the dark, poised and ready to strike, and only a fool would expose their heart willingly to such a wound. Dax can see it in her, as clear as daylight, the fear of loss lurking like unwritten tragedies in the shadows beneath her eyes.

It’s all so complicated to her, too messy and frightening to endure, and so she shies away from it because that’s all she is brave enough to do. She’s a guerrilla, a terrorist and a survivor; in so many ways she has more courage than Dax can imagine, but in others she is deeply and unfathomably afraid. Kira has learned again and again that the best way to avoid getting hurt is simply to not let it happen. And so, she doesn’t. She sticks instead to what is safe and easy, things that she can control. She doesn’t open herself up like Dax does; not at all. She just asks questions, shapes them like demands, or else barks out instructions like orders given with the feigned pretence of choice. Questions lend some kind of control, and orders lend even more; they let her dictate where the conversation will go, and Kira needs that in her life. She needs to be the one in control. Even here, even now, even with the occupation over and Bajor safe, old habits die hard and she still needs that safety net.

And so, because she is not like Kira, not afraid of feeling and not afraid of loss, Dax bows her head and lets herself be controlled.

“I’ve been better,” she answers. It’s an understatement, yes, but it’s true enough even so.

Kira studies her for a moment, takes in her dishevelled state, the pallor and the sweat and the slowly drying tracks of hysterical tears still stinging behind her eyes and staining her cheeks with humiliation and mania. She frowns, thoughtfully weighing the honesty of the words, as if Dax is in any condition to forge a believable lie.

“You look terrible,” she says at last.

Dax forces a wan smile. “Gee, thanks,” she replies dryly, and Kira meets the sarcasm with stone-faced sobriety. “That’s just what every girl wants to hear.”

“You know what I mean,” Kira says, then promptly lets the issue lie.

Without waiting for an invitation, she sits herself down on the bed, at Dax’s side but not too close. There’s about a foot’s worth of space between them, and neither of them tries to close it. Kira is keeping a respectable distance as much for her own sake as for Dax’s, clinging to that control like it’s the only thing keeping her safe, and Dax is just too tired to try and move at all. They don’t touch, and maybe it’s for the best that they don’t because Dax’s nerves feel like electric fire right now, waves upon waves of imagined sensory overload, tactile hallucinations that are every bit as frightening as visual ones, and it hurts just to think of being touched by anything, even as a part of her is longing for it. Her body is like a live wire, plasma tearing and crackling in her veins, and she’s sure that if Kira so much as breathes near her, the air will ignite.

“I did pray for you,” Kira announces, after a long moment.

Dax doesn’t know what to say to that; it all feels so silly and so pointless. She doesn’t know how to articulate what she’s thinking, or even really what that is in the first place. So, instead of trying, she just mumbles a shaky little “thank you”, and hopes that will be enough.

Kira’s expression doesn’t change, and she still holds that safety net of space between their bodies, but Dax can feel the sorrow radiating out from her in waves. “I wish there was more I could do. I really do. But the Prophets…”

“I know.” It’s little consolation, Kira and her wormhole-alien Prophets, but Dax would never say that out loud.

What good are the Prophets to her, she thinks with a bitterness that she knows is unjust. What good are the blessings of wormhole aliens? They may be gods to the Bajorans, but to the Federation — hell, to the Trill — they are just one more species of alien, no more otherworldly than Dax herself, or Kira, or Quark. There’s no comfort to be found in praying to mortal beings; what did Kira expect her so-called Prophets to do?

But, of course, that was never the point, and they both know it. This isn’t about what either of them hope to achieve; it’s about Kira and her faith. It’s about a Bajoran woman holding out the most sacred gift she has to offer and hoping that Dax will see it for what it is. It’s about Kira, who has no reason to trust anyone in the Federation, much less a Starfleet officer, laying bare her soul and her heart, praying to her gods — the one thing that the Cardassians could never take from her, the one thing that is hers and hers alone, the one thing she has that nobody else can touch — for Dax’s well-being. It’s about someone who is still too afraid to care at all, caring enough to pray.

Kira is not just offering her useless prayers, her wormhole-alien Prophets; she is breaking off a piece of that most precious part of herself, her faith, and holding it out for Dax to share.

Fact is, it doesn’t matter if Kira’s prayers are useless; to her, they are more valuable than all the gold-pressed latinum in the universe. And that means they are just as valuable to Dax as well.

“Thank you,” she whispers again, and it feels so inadequate.

Kira studies her face, wordless and thoughtful, and Dax watches as the shadows dance and flicker across the walls in a delusory puppet-show that doesn’t make sense. She wants to say something else, but her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth and her thoughts are stuck to the corners of her mind.

“Do you need anything?” Kira asks after a moment.

It’s a sweet gesture, and it lets Dax off the hook of trying to give voice to things that can’t be voiced, but the frustration is radiating out from her in waves, hot and oppressive; she’s annoyed with herself, Dax can tell, because as sweet as it is, it’s not what she wanted to say. The inadequacy spreads out between them like wet blood, damping the distance and thickening the air until it hurts to breathe, until at last it seems that Kira can’t stand it any more either, until the weight of what she wants to say bears down heavier even than the fear of seeing those feelings she still won’t admit made real.

Dax wraps her hands around the cup of tea, because it gives her something to do, and though it still doesn’t sit well inside her, she takes another long sip. “I don’t think so,” she says.

Kira shakes her head. “I didn’t mean… I’m sure you can take care of yourself, of course. You’re resourceful. I just meant…” She wrings her hands in her lap, furious with herself. “I mean… well, I’m here now, so I might as well… that is… if you need anything, I… well… like I said, I’m here anyway.”

It’s not quite feeling, but it’s much closer than Dax expected from her. She struggles to smile, to let Kira know that she understands and is grateful, but her strength fails at the worst possibly moment and her whole face crumples into a sob.

Kira’s eyes go wide, terrified, and she stares with frozen-animal fear. Through the haze of disjointed vision and blurry-edged tears, Dax can make out the sheer depth of panic on her face, the inexpressible horror, the resounding aura of _“this isn’t what I signed up for”_. She wants to reach out, to take Kira by the hand and say that it’s all right, to remind her that she’s not slept for too many nights, that she hadn’t been sleeping particularly well for longer even than that, that this hysteria-edged madness is a perfectly natural reaction to the stress her mind’s been under, that the way she’s feeling — even all this crazed sobbing — makes perfect sense in context, that there’s nothing for either of them to worry about. She wants to say all of that and more, for both their sakes, but the tragic truth is that she hardly believes it herself any more. She can’t even make sense of herself right now, so what chance does she have of convincing Kira, who can scarcely make sense of her on a good day?

“Uh…” Kira manages, articulately giving voice to both of their respective sentiments on the subject.

Dax’s tears turn to helpless laughter, catching violently in her throat and coming out in manic bursts of incomprehensible gibberish. There’s a momentary break, then, where it feels for a second or two like maybe it’s all over, like maybe she’ll start to feel a little like herself again, coughing and hiccupping messily, caught between another broken sob and more delirious laughter, like maybe she’ll be able to breathe again in a second or two. Kira is worse than terrified now, and Dax makes the mistake of looking at her, seeing the confusion and the panic etched on her face, and the thought that she could spend so much time under the thumb of Cardassian occupation without having seen someone exhausted to the point of delirium is so utterly unfathomable that it sends her over the edge into giggling hysteria all over again.

“I’m sorry,” she splutters when she finally calms down enough to catch her breath. Her voice is thick, her throat razor-sharp sore, and as the adrenaline bleeds out of her, the fatigue sets in once again. “I’m sorry, Major.”

“Kira,” she corrects automatically, and if the look on her face is anything to go by, it comes as much as a surprise to her as it does to Dax.

“Kira,” she repeats slowly, and the name tastes far more potent than she thought it would.

Kira sighs, massaging her temples. “Look,” she says. “Dax. I don’t know that there’s anything I can do for you. This isn’t really my… well, you know… it’s more Doctor Bashir’s field of expertise. He’s the doctor, I’m just a…”

She trails off, seeing that Dax is already opening her mouth to argue. Truthfully, she stopped listening at ‘Doctor Bashir’, and now all she can think of is pointing out that she knows perfectly well who’s field of expertise this is, thank you very much, and that she will go and see him in the morning, when she’s ready. It’s as good an excuse as any for Kira to stop dwelling on her own identity issues, and she waves Dax’s unspoken arguments aside like so many buzzing flies.

“I know, I know. You’ll go and see him when you’re good and ready. That’s not why I’m here, Dax, I promise. I just wanted… I just thought you might…” She clenches her jaw, so tight it turns nearly translucent, then finally swallows her Bajoran pride, loud enough that Dax can hear the gulp. “Oh, to hell with it. I want to _help_ , Dax.”

The words strike like a blow, and for a moment Dax is so stunned she doesn’t know what to say. Then she realises Kira is staring at her, fearful and exposed, open in a way that means so much more than her prayers, and she knows she has to say something but all the words are gone and the only thing she can think at all is—

“Jadzia.”

Kira frowns, confused. “I’m sorry?”

“Jadzia,” she says again, softer but with no less urgency. “It’s ‘Jadzia’.”

And it is. It’s not like when Kira said her own name; that was just the extended hand of informality, the polite gesture of not-quite friendship in the shift from title to name, and it was nothing like this at all. This is nothing so straightforward as that, not the simple hum of _”we’re both off-duty, so don’t call me by my title”_. No. This isn’t about formality or friendship at all. This is about identity, pure and simple and so fundamental to Dax, to Jadzia, to the woman sitting breathless and hysterical on the bed, the baseline heartbeat of who she is in this moment. It’s about _her_ , and of course Kira couldn’t possibly comprehend what that means, but even she can sense that Dax is trying to tell her something important.

This isn’t Dax’s pain, and it isn’t Dax’s shame. Dax is suffering, of course… but it’s Jadzia who needs Kira.

Without thinking, she finds herself leaning in, too exhausted to hold herself upright, and it’s a welcome surprise when Kira doesn’t flinch. She expects her to recoil, to draw back or make excuses and flee the room before contact becomes intimacy and intimacy becomes emotion. Maybe she expects a half-hearted apology, too, an awkward mumbling or an uncomfortable cough, but none of that comes either. She’s clearly uncomfortable, bony limbs tensing with reflexive unease as Dax rests all her weight on her, but that’s all, and it’s to be expected anyway. Dax is so much heavier in any part of her than Kira is in her whole body put together, and she knows she shouldn’t be such a burden on someone so small and thin… but Kira offered, she asked, she opened herself up, and Dax is so tired, so desperate; she needs this, needs Kira, needs her arms and her bony body, needs, more than anything else, her presence.

Kira’s discomfort is understandable, of course, but it’s all there is. A little tension, a brief shiver of surprise, a tiny grunt as she adjust to Dax’s weight, and then it’s over. The moment passes, and her arms open up like floodgates, and her body goes limp, yielding and pliant in hesitant but honest acceptance, in in understanding and promise and _welcome_.

The tears prick at Dax’s eyes again, sharp and stinging, and it’s unimaginable that there could be so many of them inside her when she has cried so much already, but once again she’s powerless to hold them at bay. She can feel the shift in Kira’s body as they start to fall again, her arms all wiry and thin, resistant even as they draws her in closer, the fabric of her uniform — so much softer than Dax’s regulation Starfleet — soaked clean through in less than the time it takes to realise that yes, she really is sobbing again. 

It goes on, as unending and relentless and before, and still Kira doesn’t flinch away. It’s clearly uncomfortable for her, physically and emotionally; they both know it, and Kira must know that Dax would never hold it against her if she ran away now, but she stands by her words like she would a declaration of war, holds fast and hard, like it’s a matter of duty, like she’s a Klingon with her honour at stake. She holds on tight, lets Dax cling to her and bury herself in that soft Bajoran fabric, in those bony shoulders and that wiry frame, in everything that Kira is, that small firecracker, fierce and feral and furious at everything. Kira, who hates the Federation, who hates Benjamin and Julian and Chief O’Brien, who hates all of them and everything they stand for. Kira, who hates Dax as well.

She has good reason to mistrust, to want to keep her distance, to avoid anything like this. She has good reason to be Major Kira and nothing else, to keep the uniform on and her hands to herself and her offers of solace locked safely away inside where they can’t hurt anyone, and least of all herself. She has good reason to not be here at all… but all of a sudden it seems that good reason isn’t reason enough to stop her, because she is here.

Against all the odds, against everything she’s been trained all her life to be, she is _here_. She’s here and she’s fighting, fighting against herself, against everything she feels and wants and believes, against everything that has defined her for as long as she can remember. She’s here, fighting everything she is with everything she has, and Dax knows how much that costs. She knows what it has cost Kira already, just to be in this room, and how much effort it has taken for her to press forward instead of back, to reach out instead of retreat, to be here herself, instead of leaving it to Benjamin to deal with his friend or Julian to deal with his patient. Every word, every step, every breath, every moment Dax has suffered these past few days, Kira has been waging war against herself to keep from leaving her to suffer it alone.

She has fought. She has fought as hard as she’s ever fought anything (and Dax knows perfectly well how hard she had to fight on Bajor), yet right now, in this moment, she is here. She’s not fighting now, not struggling and not resisting. She’s not flinching against Dax, and she’s not waging war against herself either. Right now, in this moment, she is here, wholly and completely. She is at peace, confident and steadfast in what she needs to do and where she needs to be, calm and composed and comfortable, her arms and her emotions open wide to someone who needs them, her body and heart exposed, letting herself care and feel and help, letting herself understand.

“ _Jadzia_.”

Dax knows that it’s just a name to her, nothing more and nothing less. Just a word, that’s all, a name that takes up two more syllables than the one she’s used to. It’s just a name… and yet somehow it wraps around Kira’s tongue like sweet spring wine, and echoes through the hollow space of Dax’s quarters like the fractured beat of a heart broken beyond repair. It fits in Kira’s mouth, fits on her tongue and in her throat, fits in the space between them like that space existed just so it could be filled by those two extra syllables.

It’s just a name, but it’s not. It’s a thousand things all at once, each one more intricate and beautiful and precious than the last. It’s everything and nothing, love and hate and pain and solace and more feelings than either one of them can count. It’s a word and a name and a promise, a connection forged in empathy and understanding, in fear and compassion, in courage and pride. It’s the tentative first whisper of something that might yet call itself friendship; it’s the first link forged in a chain that might one day be strong enough to support them both. It’s a soothing song, a lullaby that might keep Dax sane for a day or a night, a battle-chant that might keep Kira brave enough to stay here with her, a hushed breath to strengthen the arms that wrap around her like a mother’s and a lover’s and both at once. It’s kindness and compassion. It’s everything that was bad on Bajor and everything that is good in the Federation, everything Kira has fought against and everything Dax has fought to become.

It’s her name on Kira’s lips, and it is everything.

*


	5. Chapter 5

Though Dax doesn’t ask her to, Kira stays with her all night.

No doubt long accustomed to such things, the major dozes intermittently. She never sleeps heavily enough to dream, but indulges herself instead in fleeting power-naps; it’s more a matter of necessity than the product of any evident tiredness, and she has little trouble staying awake when she wants to. Dax is surprised, actually, by how much energy she seems to have, how well she seems to thrive on less sleep than usual; maybe that’s just the part of her that can’t remember what sleep is, she thinks dumbly, but it seems almost miraculous to her, the way that Kira can bounce so easily in and out of restfulness, ever alert even when her eyes are closed.

More astonishing than that, though, is the way that she makes no complaint about having to spend her precious rest time taking care of an exhausted Trill. Dax knows she’s far from a good patient, but Kira treats her as though she’s the most important thing in the universe. She holds her when she needs to be held, no matter how late or how long for, and doesn’t utter so much as a word when the fatigue-driven hysteria kicks in; when Dax laughs and cries and screams for no apparent reason, when she writhes under the influence of delirium, Kira doesn’t try to talk her down or argue with her or take control of the situation, or anything at all. Though it must go against her nature, she does nothing at all but sit there in calm and stoic silence, lets it all roll over her, lets Dax’s tears soak through her uniform time and time again, lets the manic laughter pierce through her ears until Dax has no doubt she must have a terrible headache, lets it all go on and on, the same madness over and over again, until Dax’s emotions finally exhaust themselves and leave her silent and spent for a minute or two.

During those brief respites when Kira does let herself sleep, Dax just sits there and watches her. It’s soothing in its own way, every bit as much as the rhythmic patterns she traces across the planes of her back, or the lilting prayer-chants she whispers into her ear when the tears take her. In sleep, Kira is ethereal, and Dax is awestruck by how preternaturally calm and still she becomes in those moments. She’s enthralled, and a little envious, mesmerised by the steady rise and fall of her chest, the way that her face eases and relaxes, decades-old strain lines smoothing out until they’re almost invisible. If there’s anyone on board the station who deserves those moments of perfect tranquillity, Dax thinks, almost happily, it’s Major Kira.

Dax, of course, doesn’t sleep at all. She’s starting to lose track of the time now, all the hours bleeding into each other, seamless colours blending and merging like paint spilled in the rain, all of her thoughts and feelings superimposed like grainy holograms across her psyche, repeating over and over and over until they’re so blurry and indistinct that she can’t remember what they’re supposed to feel like. The manic hysteria dies down a little as the night dissolves into another pointless day, the lighting systems in her quarters adjusting themselves with their usual automated precision (it’s such a shame, she thinks groggily, that the rest of the station doesn’t work so well as the lights in here do), and she finds herself drifting in a fevered state of floating senselessness, dissociated and disjointed, by the time Kira stirs and wakes for good.

“Good morning,” Dax says. Her voice sounds distant, far-off and confused, and she can just about make out the sleep-touched confusion on Kira’s face as she stares at her.

The haze only lasts a second or two, and then she’s Major Kira again, Deep Space Nine’s first officer, all business and rapt at attention. “Still no sleep, I take it?”

“Mm.” It’s the closest thing to a coherent answer Dax is able to give right now, but it’s enough to placate Kira, who is rather distracted by the task of straightening out her clothes and preparing herself for the day ahead.

“I have to go on duty,” she says, and if Dax didn’t know better, she’d swear she sounds almost apologetic. “Will you be all right by yourself for a few hours? I could talk to Sisko about staying here if you need me, but…”

Dax forces a chuckle. “Don’t be silly,” she says, or tries to say, but the words are unrecognisable. “I’ll be just fine. I have to go and see Julian anyway, so he can okay my discharge, and I’m sure he’ll have anything I need.”

 _…whether I want it or not,_ her mind adds darkly, but she doesn’t voice that out loud.

It’s not like she needs to say it, anyway; the words she does say taste so sickly by themselves that she’s sure Kira will see her feelings on the subject perfectly well. Julian’s name is difficult, too many vowels and not enough consonants to get her teeth around, cloyingly thick on her tongue with just a stab of bitterness, and she almost chokes on it. Really, she’s not even sure which part of the whole situation is the most unbearable — that she needs to go back to the goddamned infirmary, or that she needs an official discharge in the first place. It’s not that she minds seeing Julian, of course; they’ve worked together for a while now, and she’s found that he’s perfectly capable of being the textbook medical professional when he needs to be (at least, when he’s not looking up the nearest skirt, but with her colourful history Dax can hardly fault him for that); she trusts him completely, just as she trusts anyone else in this colourful little crew she’s suddenly found herself part of. So it’s not that at all. It’s just… well, she just really, really wishes that she didn’t have to be the one responsible for the inevitable heartbroken look on his face when he looks up and realises she’s back again.

It’s not just Julian, of course, but keeping her mind focused on his puppy-dog eyes and his wounded expression is at least a little bit less unpleasant than thinking about all that prodding and poking and scanning and testing, all that medical nonsense (which she knows is really just a matter of protocol, but _what if?_ ). Just the thought of it is enough to make her shudder, a violent lurch that starts deep in her stomach and presses up into her throat, radiating out in a low groan.

Kira’s arms are wrapped around her again in a heartbeat, as quick as lightning and as keen as a phaser. “Dax?”

“Oh.” She swallows. “Sorry.”

“Are you all right?”

Dax barks a laugh at the ridiculousness of the question; it’s half-mad and dizzy, but she just about manages to keep it from turning to hysteria again. “As all right as I’m going to be,” she insists. She senses the shift in Kira’s features, but she can’t focus well enough to actually see them; she can tell well enough that she’s not satisfied, though, and tries to reassure her with a deranged little smile. “I’m okay. Honest.”

“Can I do anything for you before I go?” Kira presses, unconvinced. “Get you anything?”

“No.” She shakes her head, light enough to hold the swaying of the room at bay, and pushes aside the thought of tricorders and medical jargon. “Thank you for the offer, Majo— Kira… but I’m fine, really. I just want to get this thing with Julian over with.”

The sorrow that scores new lines in Kira’s face at that is something completely new. She’s only just started to let the spectre of empathy shine through, a shimmering and hazy mist of some intangible sentiment that might one day grow up into real feeling, and already it’s starting to swell and grow rich, gaining depth and shades of colour, lifting up to a new level that it didn’t have before. It’s almost like she’s evolving, the universe behind her eyes expanding and filling up with new worlds right there in front of her, and it’s frustrating almost to the point of tears that Dax is too damn exhausted to truly appreciate it for the wonder that it is.

She’s not just supporting Dax’s weight now; she’s actively embracing her, holding her close and tight. It’s not quite a hug — Dax is pretty sure Bajorans don’t know how to hug — but it’s close enough, their bodies pressing together and fitting against each other in a way that feels almost natural, and the tension she’s come to expect in Kira’s whip-tight bones isn’t there at all. She’s holding her now, not because she thinks that Dax needs it, but simply because she herself is enjoying it. It’s a welcome change, and Dax leans into the warmth with a smile that’s as close to content as anything she’s capable of feeling right now.

“We’re going to miss you,” Kira breathes against her neck.

It takes Dax a moment to realise what she’s talking about, and it’s like a blow to her solar plexus when it hits. “In Ops?”

Wordless, Kira nods, and the ridges of her nose press coolly against the overheated line of spots marking Dax’s throat. She seems almost overwhelmed by the moment, like she thinks they’re never going to see each other again, and Dax wants to laugh at the melodrama of it all but she’s afraid that the least little chuckle would send her diving right back into the depths of hysteria again; she staved it off once, but her strength is waning faster than she’d care to admit, and she’s hanging on by a thread. Against her will, she feels her body tremble at the thought, a reflexive stumbling back away from that ever-looming brink of insanity, and Kira reflexively pulls her in a little closer. It really is an embrace now, a vice-like grip that seems to be as much for Kira’s own benefit (though they both know she’d deny that if questioned) as it is for Dax’s.

“I’ll be back,” Dax says, lips warm against the top of Kira’s head, and the words are a restless hum that burns like liquor in her throat. “I promise. I just… I just need to…”

But the vow dies unfinished on her lips, stuttering and helpless because she doesn’t know how it’s supposed to end. She doesn’t know what she needs to do, doesn’t know how long it will be before she’ll be capable of working at all, much less allowed back to do so. In truth, as much as she doesn’t want to think about it, she doesn’t even know whether she really will be back at all. For all she knows, the words could be as hollow as her thoughts are right now, and it tastes like rotten fruit on the tip of her tongue to think that she might be unwittingly lying, and especially to Kira who values honesty so highly. The real truth of it, though, is what neither of them want to admit: the only thing she knows for sure is that she can’t do her job right now. She can scarcely stand, and she feels so damn awful that she would even brave the infirmary and Julian’s disappointment if she thought for a second they might bring even the slimmest chance of relief from the endlessness of it.

If this is all she has to look forward to, she thinks, she’d sooner let it all end here. Let the symbiont find a better host if it can, let the universe swell and expand, let it grow big on her memories and remember Jadzia through them, let her mind live on in someone new even if it means her breath ends now. Her body is on the brink of its own self-destruction anyway, and she would sooner see the lights go out now, while she can still see anything at all, than dissolve and die dumb with sleep-deprived delirium.

But then, of course, there is Kira. Kira, with her newly discovered feeling. Kira, who is finally tapping into things she buried long ago. Kira, who is letting Dax hold the pieces of a heart long since cased in iron and plasma. Kira, who has just started to look at her like she might one day allow herself to care, like there’s something in Dax that might be worth caring about, like maybe she’ll be the one worth dropping that lifetime of stoicism for, worth becoming something new for. Kira, who is looking at her now like Dax’s pain is her own, like her suffering is something shared between them, a secret whispered for nobody else to ever hear. Kira, who sounds like she really does mean it when she says she’ll miss Dax at Ops, who is staring at her now like she really is afraid, like she really does need to hear those promises, even if they’re false. Kira is reason enough for Dax to fight through this, to ignore the seductive thrall of letting it end, to fight just a little more, just enough to see Julian and let him try something else. Kira is fighting against herself for Dax; it seems only fair that Dax should fight a little too.

“I promise,” she says again, hopeless and futile. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

There’s moisture between them, but Dax can’t tell which of them is crying. “Dax,” Kira whispers, breathing her in, the salt and the sweat and the suffering. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

It hurts to smile, muscle spasms splitting her jaw wide open as she clings to the ghost of what was once mirth, clutching at the memory like a blind man at the dimmest spectre of light, drawing it in and pulling it close, wrapping it around herself, and around Kira too, in a pathetically desperate hope that holding it will turn it into something solid, that believing in it will twist it into faith, that between the two of them, they might stand a chance of making it true.

“I’m not,” she hears herself insist, but it sounds distorted by her split-cheeked demon smile, and she doesn’t believe it any more than Kira does. “I always keep my promises, and I’ll keep this one too. You’ll see. I just need some sleep. I just need to…” They’re her tears, she realises sluggishly, and that means she’s probably getting close to another breakdown. “I just need a little sleep. I promise. I just… I just… I…”

“I know.” Kira has said that about a thousand times over the last few days, maybe even more. And yet, every time she does, it carries just as much weight as the very first. “I know, Jadzia.”

Dax pulls back, and they lock eyes. The thought that strikes her then comes out of nowhere, lashing down with all the force of a meteor, hot and powerful and impossible to ignore, blazing a trail through the throbbing in her skull and the pounding behind her eyes. It takes hold of her completely, absorbs her like a fever, and before she even realises she’s doing it, she’s taking Kira by the shoulders, her grip tight enough to bruise, and shaking her with a violent, frenzied kind of desperation.

“Kira,” she pants. “ _Kira_.”

The urgency is obvious in her, and Kira senses it instantly. “What is it?”

“I need…” The request is like fire on her tongue, and she tries to spit it out, but she’s burning alive. “Kira, I…”

“Dax,” Kira says; she sounds a little helpless, like she doesn’t know what to do. “Just breathe, Dax. Just try to breathe.”

So she breathes. Or tries to breathe, anyway, but it’s as futile and hopeless as everything else in her right now. Breathing is impossible, what with the solution so close at hand, burning bright and blinding, scorched onto her mind’s eye and coating her tongue. She can’t think through it, and her lips are trembling too hard for her to shape the words, but they’re there just the same. It’s all right there inside her, and with every ounce of energy left in her, she wills Kira to see it too.

“Kira,” she says again, and it’s not just her lips that are shaking now, but all of her.

“Jadzia, you’re starting to scare me.”

“I know.” She takes a deep breath, tries to heed Kira’s advice. “I’m sorry. I just…”

“Slowly,” Kira instructs, and her voice carries all the weight of a commanding officer’s.

“I need…” Dax swallows hard, and finally grasps it. “I need you to knock me out.”

Kira’s expression darkens, not with the thundercloud of anger that Dax is used to, but with fearful concern, the wild animal terror of someone who is looking straight into the face of madness and recognises it. “Jadzia…”

“I mean it,” Dax says, and she’s begging now. The pain in the plea is nothing next to the insanity of it, the sick agony of a mind on the brink of total collapse, and there’s a tiny fraction of her that knows that, that realises she’s beyond help now, but it’s silenced by the rest of her, the seething mass of nonsense that just wants a moment’s rest, a moment of peace and quiet; she just wants to sleep, and doesn’t care how she gets it. “Use a phaser, or your fist… hell, you can use a rock, for all I care. Just do it. Please. We both know you can, and I…” She bites down on her lip until she tastes blood, fresh and hot. “I can’t sleep, Kira… I need to sleep… I need it so badly… but I can’t. I _can’t_. So… so make me. Please. Make me sleep. Knock me out, and make me sleep.” She can feel the wildness deep in her chest, the half-crazed mania, and she knows that she’s rambling but she can’t stop it any more than she can make herself sleep. “Please, Kira. _Please_.”

Kira’s hands cover her own, firm but unusually tender. “You don’t know what you’re asking,” she murmurs. “You’re delirious.”

She’s probably right, and Dax concedes the point with a shrug. “Yeah, probably,” she admits. “But I don’t care. I really, really don’t care. I just… I just want to sleep. I just…” She breaks off, hearing the crack in her voice like the shattering of a window pane, even in the soundless vacuum of space. “I just want to sleep, Kira. Please.”

Kira’s lips are trembling. “Go to the infirmary,” she whispers, and it’s a plea too, every bit as desperate and helpless as Dax’s. “Go and see Doctor Bashir. Go and get real help, Dax, from a real doctor.”

Of course the advice is sound. It makes infinitely more sense than anything Dax herself can think up in her half-crazed state, and certainly more than she’s suggesting but all the logic in a thousand galaxies can’t quiet the resonant ring of rejection, the shame and pain of being turned down, even for something as irrational as this. Of course she knows that Kira is the sane one here — in that tiny place deep inside her head, that torn-up little corner of her mind that still remembers what it is to feel sane too, she really does know that — but even so she can’t keep from feeling the lash of abandonment striking out at her back with all the barbarism of a blow. She knows that the rejection is necessary, she truly does, but it still hurts, sharp and stinging like a slap to the face.

“But what if he can’t do anything?” she manages.

Kira chews her lip for a long time, contemplating but not saying anything. It’s not a concept either of them wants to think about, but the possibility is still there just the same, and it won’t go away just because neither of them wants to indulge it. Dax has gone over all the outcomes in her head a hundred thousand times, recycled them over and over again until they’ve lost all their meaning, until everything has, and every time she tries to process them they just get more terrifying; she’s already half-convinced that she will live out all the rest of her days in this giddy haze of sleepless confusion, wasting away in mind and body until neither can take it any more, and the only hope she she has left is that those days are numbered and short. Julian is a good doctor, of course he is, but Dax is far too exhausted to think rationally about any of this. As far as she’s concerned, he’s already tried to sedate her, and that failed; what more can he possibly do now?

And anyway, she hates the sedatives. They didn’t work, and she hates them. She remembers, and hates, the sting in her throat where the hypo pressed into her skin, the churning in her stomach as it seeped into her system, the headaches made so much worse as they fought off so many new stimuli, the frustration when even after all of that they still wouldn’t work. She hates how easy it is to take too much, and hates even more that it didn’t even matter if she did because it still wasn’t enough. Nothing is ever enough for her, it seems, and she hates that too; it feels like there’s no sedative in the whole quadrant potent enough to send her under, and even if there was, she’s pretty sure she wouldn’t take it anyway. The truth is, there’s just enough left in her of that fierce Klingon-loving Curzon that the idea of being knocked unconscious, forcibly driven into sleep by a fist or a phaser (or, yeah, even a rock) is a whole lot more appealing — honourable, even — than lying pathetically in a bed and waiting for some nameless drug to take hold of her and maybe, just maybe scare the sleeplessness away.

Perhaps Kira can see all of that in her after all, the desperation that spawns from so much more than just delirium, because her face softens just a little as she watches the conflict playing out across Dax’s face. Maybe she understands, better than Dax thinks, the need to go down swinging, to be taken out on her own terms if she has to go out anyway, the instinctual urge to fight and claw and struggle, the ache to melt down and reforge her suffering into something she can control, something tangible that she can claim for herself, something with a little more honour, a little more dignity, and a little more power than a goddamned useless hypospray. There’s not much of the Klingon Empire in a typical Bajoran, Dax knows, but Kira Nerys is anything but typical; she is vibrant and strong, and she’s becoming more and more so with every passing day, opening up like a late-blooming flower; there’s a radiance blossoming inside her that even the half-blind Dax can see, a fragile beauty that is far from typical, and if there is one person on the station who can understand the need for honour and dignity, for seizing control of the thing that has her by the throat, it’s Kira Nerys.

“Dax…” she whispers, like she knows all of that, like she still understands, even now.

“What if he can’t do anything?” Dax presses again. “What if Julian can’t help, Kira? What if he just gives me more sedatives that don’t work? Or what if he doesn’t give me anything at all? What if he can’t help?” It’s a terrifying thought, but right now it’s the only thought she has. “What then, Kira? What do I do then?”

Kira takes a deep breath, sighs, and shuts her eyes tight. She doesn’t speak for a long moment, but Dax can see the surrender in the way her jaw goes white, and she can tell she’s just trying to prolong the inevitable. It’s defeat, and they both know it.

“Then…” She exhales, sympathetic and sorrowful. “Then you can ask me again.”

*

It takes more than an hour after Kira leaves her to go on duty for Dax to find the courage to head down to the infirmary.

She misses Kira almost from the moment she goes, and her mind swirls with thoughts of how much easier this whole thing would be if she were still here. Dax is not a coward, at least not usually, but she would give anything to have the Bajoran powerhouse here now, to hide behind her and use that elfin body as a shield for when Julian inevitably starts up with the damn medical jargon. It would make everything so much more bearable, she’s sure, and she would sell what little is left of her soul for it. But, of course, all the soul-selling in the world won’t change the fact that it’s gone, and there’s a cross she’ll just have to bear; Kira has work to do, and Dax would never keep someone else from doing their job just because she can’t do her own.

She will survive the infirmary by herself, just as she’s survived everything else until now; it will be hard, yes, but she will endure. She’s been through far worse things than this in seven lifetimes, and it’s not like she’s facing life-or-death surgery or having the symbiont removed, or even having one put in; she remembers the joining process vividly, and it surprises her even now to think that she’s so uneasy around medical places considering what a precious gift the last one gave her. It’s just that, for as long as Jadzia can remember, doctors have always made her anxious. She’s a scientist, so she knows it’s ridiculous, but there’s a big difference between her kind of science and the kind of science that Julian practices. His kind is medical science, the science of doctors and surgeons, and for all that Dax could study the stars and their secrets until her dying day, medicine is something she just can’t stomach.

In his defence, Julian has excellent bedside manner when he sets his mind to it, and he does make the ordeal a little more bearable, at least when she’s not worried about upsetting him. He’s a lovely soul, he truly is, for all that he comes on so strong when he’s off-duty. Dax has made it clear that he’s too young, too blithe, and too innocent for her tastes, but he is relentless in his advances, and it’s almost suffocating. She can forgive him his eagerness, though, at least most of the time. She’s been a young man enough times herself that she knows well enough to pass off his passions as the youthful exuberance they no doubt are, the enthusiasm of someone who hasn’t seen enough of the universe yet to know when to back down. Julian’s advances are flattering, in their own way, and she takes them with all the lightness they deserve.

In its own way, it’s kind of refreshing; his eyes are always so wide, so full of hope and zeal even when he’s been shot down twice in as many minutes. He’s like the first spark of life from a new star, every inch of him glowing so bright it’s difficult to look directly at him, but with the promise of something beautiful, something that will some day flare up and bring life to new worlds. When he says that he cares for her, when he looks deep into her eyes and turns on that Casanova charm of his, she knows that he’s being sincere; he really does mean what he says, and she knows he would treat her well if she just gave him the chance. It’s just that she’s old and wise enough to understand that what he’s feeling is not quite the blazing comet of passion he imagines it is.

Julian is a sweet boy, but he is just that: a boy. Dax understands his sentiments, and the part of her that wishes it were still so naive admires him for them, but the rest of her is old and wise enough to know that they come from a place of ignorance. He’s an idealist; it’s the whole reason he’s here in the first place, the bright-eyed optimism of a young man in love with his own idealistic visions of ‘frontier medicine’, a man infatuated by the romance of something he’s never had to actually live through. Everything is an adventure to Julian Bashir, the whole universe a great white canvas of possibility and potential, bare and waiting for him to pour paint all over it and call it a new masterpiece. Dax knows from hard-earned experience that the universe doesn’t often work that way, that there are no masterpieces to be found on the frontier and there never will be. Time will strip him of that young man’s idealism, she has no doubt about that, and she frankly sees no reason to speed the process along. Life is a cruel mistress and a ruthless teacher, vicious enough without her help; let sweet Julian enjoy his innocence while it’s still his to enjoy. He is a fool, beyond doubt, but he is a beautiful little fool.

Mustering the courage to leave her quarters and go down to the infirmary is a task in itself. Actually getting there, Dax finds, is nothing short of an ordeal.

She’s well aware of how weak she’s become by now, how her traitorous body deceives and abuses her at every turn, but it’s been a day since she had to walk any distance on her own, and she discovers too late to turn back just how far she’s fallen in that time. Every few minutes, she finds herself having to stop and lean against the nearest wall, light-headed and dizzy, her legs aching like she’s just run the circumference of a planet, lungs burning like she’s held her breath for a week. She knows that she’s exhausted, knows that there are bound to be physical side-effects of such things… but never in her wildest dreams was she prepared for this.

The thing is, Dax has always been the peak of physical fitness; she’s doubly blessed in receiving Emony’s athletic dexterity, and Curzon’s martial prowess, and it’s all come together with Jadzia’s natural enjoyment of an active lifestyle. She’s never actually had to run the circumference of a planet, but she has faith enough in herself that she’d give it a shot if the stakes were high enough. She may not be especially fast, but for a young woman she is phenomenally strong and extremely durable; she has never struggled with a workout in her entire life, no matter the difficulty settings, and yet all of a sudden the short walk from her quarters to the infirmary is enough to leave her breathless and worn down. It’s humiliating, and the brutalised remains of her pride take beating after beating with every step, a fresh bruise making its mark each time she needs to stop and recover.

She feels like an invalid, like Curzon felt during his final few months, old and frail and utterly unable to do anything for herself. She feels pathetic, worthless, and the tears that sting behind her eyes now are nothing to do with delirium and everything to do with frustration.

When she arrives, Julian is with a patient. He glances up, and a frown creases his brow; he’s got enough professionalism in him to keep from remarking on her condition out loud, but she can tell by the look on his face that he’s deeply concerned.

“Take a seat,” he tells her, as formally as he ever says anything. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

The invitation is all she needs, and her legs collapse underneath her almost before she has a chance to find something to sit on; luckily for her, there’s a bed a couple of feet away and she falls lifelessly onto its lumpy surface and drops her head down into her hands. Everything hurts, and it’s all she can do to keep from screaming as she presses the heels of her hands into her temples, driving away the pounding in her head by sheer force of will.

All of a sudden, she’s kind of glad that she’s here, because she feels violently ill; the throbbing of her head is almost unbearable, and she lets out a sick little moan as she struggles to drown out the background droning of Julian’s good-natured rambling to his present patient. It’s harmless stuff, really, typical doctor’s catchphrases like _“how many fingers am I holding up?”_ and _“any dizziness or vertigo?”_ and _“well, I’m sorry, but if you will insist on playing racquetball with a drunk Klingon, there’s really not much I can do…”_. Dax finds that last one especially amusing, and she idly thinks about offering some of Curzon’s particular expertise on the subject; he may have had little patience for racquetball, but he certainly had more than his fair share of run-ins with drunk Klingons. She thinks better of it, though — doctor-patient confidentiality or some such thing — and just keeps her mouth shut. She sighs instead, and waits, hoping against hope for the room to stop spinning or Julian to stop talking. Or, ideally, both.

It’s somewhat longer than the ‘moment’ he promised, and she doesn’t even realise that he’s ready for her until she feels the solid weight of his hand on her shoulder and hears his voice, soft and low, next to her ear.

“Jadzia?”

She tries to look up at him, but her head is too heavy to lift. It hurts to even try, so she just keeps it where it is and hopes that he won’t find it too rude. It’s not like he really needs to see her face, anyway; the state of her health is written in plain text all over her body.

“Julian,” she manages. “I need you to declare me unfit for duty.”

He coughs delicately, and she can see the frown on her face clearly in her mind’s eye without even having to try and look up to see it for herself. “Well,” he remarks, “that’s not going to be a problem. From the look of you, I’d say you’re unfit for anything at all.” It’s a tactless feint at humour, typical of him, but he sobers quickly enough, just as she knew he would. “What happened, Jadzia? Didn’t the sedative I gave you work?”

Feeling wretched and humiliated, she shakes her head. “No,” she admits, and hates herself for it. “It didn’t, Julian. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he cries, utterly aghast at the very notion. “My god, Jadzia! Why didn’t you come back if it was getting this bad?”

It’s a good question, and one she doesn’t have a satisfactory answer for. “I didn’t want to bother you,” she mumbles hazily; it may not be the whole truth, but it’s true enough for now.

“Bother me?” he echoes, horrified. “It’s my job!” The weight of his hand presses a little more heavily on her shoulder, and then it’s gone, fingers cupping her chin and tilting her face up so he can look into her lifeless eyes and see the fog of exhaustion for himself. “Sisko would have me sent straight back to the Academy if he thought for a second I’d let a patient get this bad! You should have come back immediately!”

That’s true enough, as well, and she knows it. She can’t argue, and she doesn’t try to, but how can she possibly explain? How can she tell him, here and now and knowing how upset he is already, that she couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing him any more, that she couldn’t face the thought of seeing that idealistic bright-eyed wonder die on his face when he saw how far she’d declined? How can she tell him that she wanted to power through on her own, that she thought she was better than this, that she _wanted_ to be better? How can she expect him to understand how much of a humiliation it is that she’s had to come back at all, even for this, that it’s dishonour beyond words to submit to her own weakness? How can she tell him that she’s not like him, that she’s more like Benjamin, a stubborn old man who can’t accept the idea that she couldn’t make herself well simply by willing it to be so?

Most of all, how can she tell him that simply being here at all, surrounded by tricorders and hyposprays and doctors, terrifies her?

She can’t, of course, and so she doesn’t. She just rolls her eyes, even though it hurts, and glares at him like all of this is his fault. It’s everything she didn’t want, everything she’s tried to avoid, but she can’t admit any of those things, can’t utter out loud the pathetic fears that are eating her up inside, can’t add yet more weakness to the broken-down husk of a soul she’s already become.

“I didn’t come here for a lecture,” she snaps instead, and instantly regrets it; he’s just trying to help, and he doesn’t deserve to feel her wrath just because she’s too much of a coward to direct it inwards where it belongs.

“Jadzia…”

She sighs, forces herself to swallow her pride and her words. “I’m sorry, Julian. I didn’t mean that. I just…”

She can’t finish, but he takes pity on her, and pats the bed she’s sitting on instead. “I see,” he says kindly, though he clearly doesn’t. “Look, just lie down and try to relax. Let me take a proper look at you. I’m sure that between us we can figure out what’s causing this, and I’ll have a remedy conjured up in no time.”

Honestly, Dax doubts that any of that will happen, but she doesn’t say so. She’s said enough stupid things for one day already, and thought far more, and there isn’t much room left in her mouth for any more of her foot. Instead, then, she just does as he tells her to, lying down on the unpleasant bed and trying to relax. Not very successfully, but she supposes she should at least get a few points for the effort.

Truthfully, none of this is nearly as straightforward as he makes it sound — if she found it that easy to lie down and relax, she wouldn’t be having any trouble getting to sleep in the first place! — but she does the best she can, for Julian’s sake far more than her own, and tries not to complain as he runs a tricorder over her prone form, studying the readouts as he goes with the kind of curious intensity that she’s always found so discomfiting in doctors. He’s staring at the stupid little machine like it’s spitting out every intimate details of her body, every dirty little secret of her inner workings, the complex and the personal and everything in between, like he’s learning everything there is to know about her, but heaven forbid he actually share any of it.

“How long has this been going on?” he asks as he works, his tone as light and jovial as if they’re at Quark’s chatting over a synthehol.

“About four days,” she answers tiredly. “Maybe five.” She’s not sure why she feels compelled to keep it vague, because there’s no guessing involved at all. Fact is, she’s been counting the hours like clockwork since she stopped being able to close her eyes. “But, uh… I’d been having some trouble sleeping for a few nights before then too.”

“What kind of trouble?” he asks.

Dax shrugs. “Just restlessness, I suppose you’d call it. A little jittery, you know? Hard to relax. Probably just the bi-product of being in a new place. You know what it’s like.”

He hums at that, as though she’s given him some miraculous insight. “I see,” he says again, and again neglects to tell her what he supposedly sees. Dax bites her tongue to keep from screaming in frustration at how useless that phrase is.

“Julian,” she forces out through gritted teeth, struggling not to raise her voice. “Can you figure out what’s wrong with me or not?”

He shoots her a look, the kind that says _“I’m the doctor, you’re the patient, and if you know what’s good for you, you will lie still and keep quiet until I’m finished”_ , and goes right back to his scanning. In a strange sort of way, she finds the dismissal kind of endearing; Julian is such a young boy most of the time, all big eyes and big heart, so filled with exuberance and awkward sentimentality that it’s a miracle there’s room enough inside him for anything else at all. It’s always a pretty drastic change of demeanour when she gets to see him in his element, treating the sick and injured and putting on his doctor’s face. Of course, Dax kind of hopes that she won’t have to see this particular side of him very often — if she does, she’s doing something very wrong — but it’s comforting to know that if she ever does need him to turn off the patented Julian Bashir charm and turn on the good doctor’s medical expertise, he can do it with effortless fluidity. He may be a boy, but he’s also a doctor, and he knows it.

“Have you been taking anything to compensate?” he asks, bringing her back into the moment, and the way that he’s still sweeping her with his damn tricorder.

At first, she doesn’t understand the question, and she creases her brow in a puzzled frown. “What do you mean?”

He doesn’t stop scanning, but he at least has the decency this time to look up from the readouts and meet her eye for a second or two. “Well, for example, have you been drinking more coffee than usual? Or maybe taking it extra strong? Anything like that?”

It’s a stupid question, and she has no doubt that he’ll see the disbelief in her face, but she’s too aghast to even try and hide it for the sake of his dignity. This is the professional doctor’s opinion she’s come here to seek out? This is the medical help Kira insisted she get?

“No,” she answers, simple and straightforward, and tries not to glare as she says it. “I’ve not had any coffee for at least a couple of days now.” He narrows his eyes, clearly not convinced, and she rolls hers in reply; apparently, though it should go without saying, he wants her to say it anyway. “I don’t want to stay up even longer, Julian. I want to sleep.”

“I see,” he says, for about the millionth time, and goes right back to studying his godforsaken tricorder.

She takes a deep breath, then another, and wills herself to put seven lifetimes’ worth of patience to the test. It’s much harder than it should be, and she finds herself struggling to hold on to her usual calm, not just because of her less-than-perfect state, but also because he seems to be going out of his way to drag this whole thing out beyond anyone’s tolerance level. It’s not even the fact that it’s taking forever, she thinks with a bitterness that tastes almost sweet; it’s that he won’t even give her the first idea of what he’s thinking. Maybe if he gets a free minute some time this century, he might see fit to fill her in on his findings too, but until he does, she can’t control the impatience that surges in her. It's only her body, after all; why should she get to know what's going on inside it?

All it takes is one more sweep with the damn tricorder, and her paper-thin patience snaps like a frayed nerve. “Dammit, Julian!”

With obvious effort, he comes back to himself; he doesn’t put the tricorder down, of course, but at least he has the decency to look up for five seconds and remember that she’s there. “I’m sorry,” he says, and she’d almost believe him if he didn’t turn right back to the damn machine the instant the words are out. He’s really lucky that she doesn't have the strength to even hold herself upright right now, she thinks moodily, because if she did she would be using it to rip the stupid thing out of his hands and throw it across the room.

“Julian!” she shouts instead, exasperated.

“Oh!” he blurts out unhelpfully. She glares, and he gives another one of his delicate little coughs, this one more apologetic than contemplative, and finally — finally! — puts his precious tricorder away. Dax rolls her eyes as he does it and crosses her arms over her chest, still waiting for that ever-elusive explanation.

Julian, sensing her displeasure, takes an uneasy step back. “Uh…”

Dax hisses. “Julian…”

“Well…” he stammers, like a fresh initiate summoning the courage to give bad news to a superior officer; it does absolutely nothing for her confidence, and even less to assuage her anxiety. “It’s just, well… you see… the thing is…”

“Oh, for the love of anything!” she snaps. “Out with it, Julian, or so help me, I will take that tricorder and—”

“All right.” He holds up his hands in exaggerated surrender. “All right. I’m sorry. It’s just that… well, if my readings are correct, you seem to have extremely high levels of caffeine in your system.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Well, it would certainly explain why you can’t sleep,” he says, as though he hasn’t even heard her. “And why you’re feeling so… unlike yourself. Over-indulgence on that level—”

“I said ‘don’t be ridiculous’,” Dax repeats. “I don’t care what your readings say, Julian, it’s not possible.”

“Is it?” he asks softly. It sounds like an accusation more than a question, and she flinches away as he tries to lay a condescending hand on her shoulder. “Come on now, Jadzia. We’re both Starfleet officers, and we both know how it is. We’ve all been through those long shifts or runabout missions, days spend running on little to no sleep, and it’s perfectly normal to try and compensate for a period of insomnia or exhaustion by drinking too much coffee. We all do it, and there’s no shame in…” He trails off as Dax glares at him again. “But, ah… my point is, in the end it’s just lending itself to further the problem, and I really think that if you—”

“Julian,” she says again, steadier this time, though no less aggressive. “It’s not possible. I’ve not had any coffee in days. Or raktajino, before you ask, or anything else of the kind. I had one cup two or three days ago, and it didn’t agree with me, and I’ve not had anything since.” She twists her hands in her lap, though whether it’s to keep herself from strangling him or just out of idle frustration, even she isn’t quite sure. “Look, Julian, I don’t know how much clearer I can make this. I don’t want to ‘compensate’ for my exhaustion. I don’t need to stay awake, and I don’t want to either. I’m not even on duty any more, for heaven’s sake. Why would I start overdosing on caffeine now?” She sighs at the dubious look on his face, like he still trusts his tricorder more than he trusts her. “Like I said: all I want to do is get some sleep.”

He shakes his head, and she can tell that the sympathy on his face is sincere. “Well, I’m afraid with that much caffeine in your system, that’s not going to happen any time soon.”

Dax swears, furious and devastated. “That’s not good enough, Julian!”

He studies her for a moment, like he wants to try and calm her down but realises there’s nothing he can really do. She’s upset, and with good reason, and he seems to understand that the more time he spends on niceties and bedside manner, the less he’s spending on actual explanation, which right now is about the only thing in the whole universe she actually wants right now. And so, instead of hollow placations, this time he just gives her a moment to compose herself, then takes a breath and moves on with his usual medical narrow-mindedness.

“Look, Jadzia,” he says, probably more courteously than she deserves. “I understand your frustration, believe me. But we’re on the right track now. That should count for something.”

“Not from where I’m sitting,” she retorts; she’s acerbic, but by this point, she can’t help thinking it’s rather justifiable.

As ever, Julian is running on his own train of thought, like she’s not even there; she wouldn’t be surprised if he’d forgotten she was there at all by now, so caught up in his latest great medical mystery as he rambles on, almost to himself. “…though it does beg the question, of course, of how all that caffeine got into your system in the first place.” He frowns thoughtfully; Dax is on the brink of giving up on him entirely when he finally looks up at her again. “If you’re not consuming it yourself, then where in the world is it coming from?”

Dax is too tired to even pretend she cares. “That’s your job,” she snaps sharply. “I just want to know if there’s anything you can do about it.”

“I’m not entirely sure,” he muses. “But I can certainly give it a try.”

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Dax doesn’t really find that comforting.

*


	6. Chapter 6

It’s well into the evening before Julian lets her leave the infirmary, and by then she wants nothing more than to just crawl under her covers and hide from everything.

She doesn’t even care any more that she won’t be able to sleep; bit by bit she’s come to accept that, willed herself by sheer stubbornness to deal with the idea that she might never sleep again. Sleep is such a far-off concept now, so alien and so impossible that she doesn’t dare let herself imagine it, much less hope for it. It’s too much to dream of, even hallucinate, and so she doesn’t. All she wants is some peace, quiet, and solitude. That’s not so much to ask for, is it?

In his defence, Julian at least makes the effort. Well, once he’s through poking and prodding and scanning and going ‘hmm’ and talking to the walls, anyway; he pumps her full of drugs once more, this time in the hope of counteracting the caffeine in her system; she’s sure he explains the process to her, no doubt very thoroughly and in great detail, but honestly she’s stopped listening by the time he takes his first breath. She no longer cares about explanations by that point; all she wants is for him to let her leave the infirmary and go home.

Finally, after more hours than she can count, just as her back is on the point of seizing up from all the sitting and lying on uncomfortable beds, he gives up and sends her on her way.

“Come back first thing in the morning,” he instructs, and Dax is too worn down and too tired to argue even if she wanted to. “I’ve got a few possibilities that I want to eliminate before we try anything else.”

“Great…” Dax mutters.

It’s just what she needs, she thinks bitterly as Julian walks her to the turbolift. More trial-and-error. More unanswered questions, more tricorder scans, more hours spent staring at the walls of that place she hates so much. It’s the last thing she wants, even as a part of her realises and understands that she should do whatever is necessary to get to the bottom of this. Julian will never figure it out if she doesn’t at least give him a chance, and she knows it. But after five nights without sleep, the madness closing in tighter with every breath she takes, every moment the answers are deferred is another moment of torture that she’s not entirely sure she can survive.

This thing will devour her before too long, of that she has no doubt. She won’t admit to it, of course, and when she says her goodbyes to Julian, reassuring him again that she will show up promptly in the morning, it’s with a tired but halfway honest smile. For all he knows — at least, for all she’ll allow him to know — she’s grateful for his help, optimistic about his chances of figuring this thing out, and feeling better. He doesn’t need to know that that’s all a facade, doesn’t need to see the despair that drops down over her like a funeral shroud the second she’s alone.

Julian is trying his best. Dax knows that, and she won’t make this any more difficult for him than it absolutely has to be. It won’t do either of them any good if she yells and screams and throws things, no matter how badly she may want to, and so she doesn’t. She just nods and braces when he presses the latest hypo to her neck, swallows down the rising disorientation, and hopes against hope that this drug will do more than the sedatives did. Not that she’d had any reason to expect it, of course, but a little hope is better than nothing, and right now she’ll take anything she can get.

The peace and quiet of her quarters isn’t as comforting as she hoped it would be. It’s delightful for about five minutes, the silence and solitude balming the discomfort for a little while, but once the relief dies down, as it always does, she finds herself left with the same horrible feelings as before. She’s still exhausted, still restless and uncomfortable, still miserable beyond words, and the only thing that’s changed now — assuming Julian really does know what he’s talking about — is that she supposes she can blame it all on too much caffeine.

As diagnoses go, it’s not a particularly comforting one, though thinking about it for too long does spark another explosion of hysterical laughter. Once it dies down, she realises that having the explanation — such as it is — has only made her all the more hyper-conscious of her symptoms. Every tremor of her hands, every pulse of pain in her head, every time she tries and fails to close her eyes; it all makes so much more sense now than it did before, not that that really helps. Knowing why isn’t very much of a comfort when it still won’t stop, and all it does is make her wonder why she wasted her time demanding answers when she should have been asking for a cure.

She may have her answers now, may have the explanation she was so impatient for, but it seems that there’s still so far to go before she can do anything with it. _Miles to go_ , she thinks wryly, _before I sleep_.

Knowledge may be a valuable tool, but right now it’s like a blunt-edged blade, useless and ineffectual against the countless layers of rock and metal built up like a prison around her mind. As a scientist, Dax is kind of obligated to believe that knowing and understanding a situation is the only sure way to defend against it, but right now all that knowledge just feels like preparing to face an army of rampaging Klingons by taking up a plastic sword. Knowing what the onslaught will be doesn’t help to dull the pain when it hits, and Dax has never felt so ill-equipped to defend herself against anything in all of her seven lives.

The night drags its feet, just like the four before, ticking away in minutes and hours, staccato heartbeats and imaginary rhythms that drag her temptingly towards the precipice but always yank her back before she can fall into that ever-elusive darkness she wants so much. Dax lies awake and lets the time wash over her, counts out the seconds as they pass and lets the constant motion of time ground her in who and where and what she is, counting out the the beats of her heart until they’re the only thing she can still understand.

At oh-five-hundred hours, her door chimes, and the smile that lifts her weary features is there long before the door slides open to reveal Kira’s worry-lined face.

“I didn’t wake you, did I?”

It’s meant in jest, at least in part, but there’s a kind of ache in her voice that wraps itself around Dax’s chest like a vice, squeezing until those sanity-preserving heartbeats constrict and stutter into nothing.

“No,” she says softly. “Of course you didn’t.”

Kira sighs, and just like that the humour vanishes. “Didn’t think so.” 

Coming from her, it feels like a surrender; all of a sudden she looks and sounds almost as exhausted as Dax feels, her shoulders slumping and her face worn deep with strain and sadness. The sound of her voice is a pain all of its own, and Dax wants to kiss and caress those deep-etched lines, sand them all down until everything about her is as smooth and serene as she was in sleep.

It feels like Kira is sharing Dax’s suffering with her now, like she is feeling all of this pain too, like she doesn’t just understand, but is actively sharing it, the madness and the relentless delirium, like she’s enduring the weight of it all just as heavily as Dax herself is. She feels terrible about that, struck down by the guilt and shame of knowing that she’s not strong enough to keep this torment to herself. She hates that Kira has to feel this too, hates that it’s her fault… and yet, at the same time, she can’t deny that there’s a kind of solace in having another soul to share it with.

She wouldn’t wish this feeling on her worst enemy, much less someone she actually cares about, but there’s something intangibly sweet about looking into Kira’s eyes and seeing her own pain reflected. It’s like it becomes more real when she sees it in Kira, more valid somehow, like she’s justified in feeling this way because Kira wouldn’t waste her time on something that is weak and pathetic, no matter how much sympathy she’d grudgingly spend. Kira doesn’t have the time or the patience for weakness, Dax knows that perfectly well, and the fact that she’s willing to invest so much of herself in this — in Dax — speaks more about how serious this is than either of them would care to admit. Dax doesn’t need anyone’s approval, of course, and she certainly doesn’t need someone else to tell her that what she’s feeling is real, but somehow, when that validation comes from Kira, it makes her feel just a little less pathetic.

She still doesn’t understand why, of course. But more and more, she finds that she doesn’t need to.

“You’re up early,” she hears herself say. She wants to say so much more, but the thought of what she’s feeling stutters in her mind, and she’s afraid of shattering the moment by reminding Kira that it exists.

The distraction, such as it is, works well enough, and Kira shrugs. “Late, actually,” she corrects wearily. “I’ve only just come off duty.” She sighs, good-natured, but sad. “We’re stretched pretty thin up there without you.”

Dax opens her mouth to assure her once again that she’ll be back soon, that Kira will be losing her temper again in no time, that things will go right back to the way they were before either of them can blink, Dax with her cloying cock-eyed optimism and Kira with her lack of patience for anything that isn’t deathly serious, and Benjamin standing between them and shaking his head because he knows that neither of them would trade in their sniping for anything in the world.

She wants to say it for Kira’s sake, yes, but more even than that, she wants to hear the words for herself; she’s overwhelmed beyond words, she realises, desperate to believe that today is not forever, even as she can’t see a way out of it, even as all she can hear is the ticking of the seconds and the beating of her heart, even as all she can see is the tilt and swerve of the ceiling, even as all she can think of is the hitch of Kira’s breathing as she drinks deep and shares all of that. She wants to remind them both that this won’t be the rest of their lives, that one day they’ll be over it; she wants to say it, to hear it, to believe it, and to share it. She wants to pretend that seeing Julian was the first step to recovery, to imagine that things will move forward now, for them both. She wants to say it and hear it and believe it. But, of course, she doesn’t do any of those things.

She doesn’t, because she doesn’t trust Julian’s judgement, because he doesn’t really know anything more now than he did yesterday, because how is she supposed to fight something that’s supposedly inside her when she doesn’t even know why?

She wants to cast aside all that doubt, to paint this dull metallic room in the bright colours of cock-eyed optimism, to borrow a page from Julian’s book and pretend that things will go better from now on. She wants to force herself to feel better by draping her aching shoulders in the borrowed clothes of false hope and pretty ideals. But then, of course, she remembers the look on Kira’s face yesterday morning when she tried to say the same thing. She remembers the quiet severity, the dangerous edge of anger when she told her not to make promises if she couldn’t keep them. It’s so important to Kira, honesty and integrity even over things like hope, and though she aches so desperately for a lie to cling to, she will not disappoint Kira’s faith in her by dragging her down too. 

And so, though she wants it so desperately she can hardly breathe, she bites her tongue and holds the words inside.

“Julian says it’s too much caffeine,” she says instead, and hearing the diagnosis aloud makes her realise yet again just how ridiculous it is.

Kira barks a humourless laugh. “I’m so glad Starfleet picked such a smart and capable man to be our medical officer,” she remarks.

Dax feels her smile turn to water. “Kira.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” Kira snaps, sounding quite the opposite. “But really, is that all he’s got? Has he even seen you? By the Prophets, Dax! You’re on the edge of a breakdown, and all he has to say is—”

“Kira.” It hurts to say her name. “Don’t.”

She tries to say more, but she can’t. The frustration is starting to catch up with her again, bringing her to the brink of rage and tears, anger and pain at the same time, and she knows that she can’t fight them all off. Anger and rage are one thing, pain is another, and tears are something else altogether, and it’s too much, too much for someone so weak to stave them all off at the same time. Even if she does muster the strength to swallow down the rage, the pain will hit and leave her breathless, and if she manages to hold that back too, then the tears will come to claim her in their stead. She can’t win, and she can’t speak either. She can only stare down at Kira like a lost little girl, frightened and broken and miserable, feeling the brutal myriad of emotions and sensations draining all the colour from her face, vivid and stark and impossible to ignore, and wish that she wasn’t so helpless, so obvious, so humiliatingly exposed.

Kira has spent her whole life suffering far worse things than this. Now that she’s finally free, she deserves more than a broken-down Trill who will make her suffer all over again. She deserves a whole lot more than Dax.

“I…” she starts again, but she has nothing to say.

“No.” Kira touches her hand, and the apology in the contact speaks far more loudly and with far more truth than the words that choke and rattle in her throat. “I’m sorry, Jadzia. I was out of line.” She forces a laugh, struggling pointlessly to make light of it. “Besides, why am I even ranting about this to you? You were there. I’m sure you know perfectly well how useless Doctor Bashir is, without me having to tell you.”

“He’s not useless,” Dax argues automatically, but it doesn’t really feel like the truth right now. “He just doesn’t…” She swallows hard, tries not to think of all the wasted hours in the infirmary, the frustration and the impatience and everything else, then gives up with a heavy sigh. “Oh, I don’t know. I just… it’s too hard to think, Kira, I’m sorry.”

Kira’s fingertips linger, tracing the backs of her knuckles, strong like reinforced steel. “I know,” she says. Those words always sound hollow from anyone else, even Benjamin, but they never do from her.

With more effort than she’d care to admit, Dax swallows. “I’ve not had any coffee in days,” she goes on, and it’s basically an admission of everything Kira’s just said: that Julian, for all his training and his expertise, is fundamentally useless. “I’ve not even looked at a raktajino since… I don’t even know. It feels like forever. I don’t even…” Her throat contracts, a terrible gagging laugh, feverish and close to frenzy. “Can you imagine?” she splutters, trying to hold the descending madness at bay. “I’m going crazy trying to get some sleep, and he thinks I’m drinking too much coffee!”

Kira presses her fingers down, hard, and Dax grounds herself in the fleeting almost-pain that the pressure brings. “Dax.”

“I’m sorry.” She feels like she’s said that a hundred times in the last few minutes alone. “I’m sorry, Kira, I…” She laughs again, mirthless and dark. “I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

That does it. Like the shattering of a glass, Kira’s resolve breaks and, without so much as a word of prompting, she pulls Dax’s whole body into her arms.

The embrace is fierce. No, more than fierce, it’s violent, and Dax knows that it’s just the way Kira is — she does everything violently because violence is all she knows, all she’s ever known — but at the same time it’s everything she needs, everything she didn’t realise she needed until it was right there holding her, wrapping her up and taking her. Jadzia has never been the sort of person who needed protecting, and even if she ever did find herself in need, she’d never admit to it. She’s driven to a fault, tall and strong and proud, and she is utterly incapable of backing down even when she knows it’s stupid to persevere. She’s a law unto herself most of the time, because she spent so much of her youth with so much to prove, and while the Dax symbiont may have learned the art of picking its battles carefully, of thinking twice before charging into something, Jadzia is more resistant to that than anything else her former hosts have to offer. Even Curzon held his tongue once in a while, even if it did make him angry to do so; Jadzia doesn’t even manage that.

She doesn’t want coddling or cuddling; she doesn’t need Julian’s sugar-coated saccharine or Benjamin’s soft-spoken empathy, and it’s only when Kira’s arms wrap around her, as much throttling as embracing, that she realise what she really wants and needs is _this_. This, the unfettered brutality of Kira’s arms around her, the violence of her embrace, the raw unapologetic passion shaking through both their bodies, the taste of savagery in something so powerful that it holds them both helpless. This, all of it, and she collapses into Kira’s arms, feeling that fragile Bajoran frame bend and yield once more, shaping itself to her as if it was made for this, as if they both were. This, the violence that has them both, this violence that _is_ them both. This, Kira’s past and Jadzia’s pride, both so alive in this, their joined passion. _This_.

A ragged whimper shudders suddenly in Dax’s chest, overwhelmed and overpowered, bruises replacing brokenness, and it’s by pure instinct that Kira leans in and presses her lips to the sweat-soaked spots at her temple, silencing the struggling sound, if only for a moment, into breathless relief.

“Kira…” Dax whispers. “Please…”

“Don’t,” Kira says.

For once in her lives, Dax obeys.

*

In keeping with Julian’s instructions, she prepares to go back to the infirmary as the artificial pre-dawn turns to morning. In truth, she really doesn’t really see what good it will do either of them unless he’s had some kind of miraculous epiphany in the middle of the night, but he told her to go back, and so she will.

Kira, though she’s clearly tired, offers to forego her own rest hours and go with her. Dax tries to decline, telling her that she’ll be fine — _“after all,”_ she says, _“it’s just silly useless Julian; what’s the worst he can do?”_ — but Kira isn’t buying it for a second. The tremor in Dax’s voice as she makes the effort is probably proof enough that she needs her presence more than she’d care to admit, and when Kira puts her foot down and insists that it’s no longer an offer but an insistence, her own voice is as solid and unshakeable as a rock.

They stop by the replimat for breakfast. Or, more accurately, Kira stops for breakfast while Dax stares forlornly at nothing in particular. Her stomach, like the rest of her, is shaky and unsteady this morning, and no matter how pointedly Kira glares at her she simply doesn’t trust herself to eat. It’s like the damn raktajino she had back at the start of the week, or the Tarkalean tea that Kira was kind enough to bring her the day after; the mere thought of putting anything into her stomach makes her knees go weak with pre-emptive nausea. She waves away at least half a dozen suggestions, and finally Kira throws up her hands in surrender.

“All right,” she grumbles at last. “Fine, if that’s what you want. But if Doctor Bashir accuses me of not feeding you properly…”

“…I promise I’ll take all the blame,” Dax reassures her, and they both almost manage to smile.

By the time they reach the infirmary, Julian is practically beside himself. He’s got his precious tricorder out and in his hand almost before they’re all the way through the door, and when Dax tries to roll her eyes at his dramatics, the room tilts so hard she almost pitches forward.

Kira’s there to catch her, of course, and Dax draws more comfort than she expects from the patterns her thin fingers trace across her back as she holds her steady and the way she wraps her other hand around her own, gentle touches with lightly sharpened edges, stroking or squeezing in rhythm with the hitching of her breath. For a beautiful moment, neither of them even remember that Julian is there at all, and it’s almost enough for Dax to forget her unease and try to relax. Almost, but not quite.

But then, of course, Julian cuts through the intimacy with his usual oblivious medical awkwardness, giving another of his patented throat-clearing coughs and crossing to where they stand.

“How are we feeling this morning?” he asks, as exaggeratedly professional as ever.

Dax opens her mouth to answer, but Kira gets there first. “We?” she echoes coldly, like the condescension is a personal slight against them both.

Julian glances at her, startled, like he’s only just realised that she’s there at all. “Oh,” he splutters uncomfortably. “Ah. Good morning, Major.”

“Good morning,” she replies, baring her teeth in a dangerous grin.

Dax braces herself against the nearest bed, leaning on one hand and massaging the bridge of her nose with the other. It’s bad enough that she’s here at all, she thinks dizzily, but to have to deal as well with Kira and Julian rolling their eyes and biting off quips at each other and generally both trying to be the most important person in the room? On any other day, she’s sure the whole thing would have been amusing, even kind of endearing in its own way; a little healthy competitive instinct never hurt anyone, and most of the time it’s good for morale. Today, though, with her head pounding and her stomach lurching and the whole station spinning around her like O’Brien accidentally switched off the gravity again? No, thank you. For the time being, it’s almost more than she can stand just being here at all, much less having to play mediator at the same time, however cute it is that they’re hissing and growling at each other like housepets marking their territory.

“Could you two please stop that?” she asks, too exhausted to even try to be diplomatic. “Julian, I’m here now. Can we please just get on with this?”

“Oh.” Julian makes another embarrassed spluttering sound, and gestures at the bed she’s still leaning on. “Ah, yes. Of course. Lie down and make yourself comfortable, and I’ll just…” He trails off, and his eyes are back on Kira in a second. “Will the, ah, major be joining us?”

Kira sneers. “That’s not a problem is it?”

“That’s really up to the patient,” Julian replies, sounding somewhat dubious as he glances back at Dax. “If Lieutenant Dax doesn’t mind your presence, then of course you’re more than welcome to stay.”

“You’re so kind.” Taking that as an invitation to openly ignore his existence, Kira looks at Dax as well, one brow quirked in a cynical demand. “Well, Lieutenant?”

Dax groans, avoiding both their stares by hopping up onto the bed and staring placidly down at the floor. “Of course I want you to stay,” she mumbles, shuddering at how needy she sounds. “But try to be nice if you can. He’s just doing his job.”

“That’s right,” Julian says, returning the favour by promptly turning his back on Kira. “Lest we forget, Major, we’re all here with the lieutenant’s best interests at heart…”

“How sweet,” Kira deadpans.

Much to Dax’s relief, Julian doesn’t dignify that with a response. “Now, Jadzia, let’s take a look at you…”

This time, he at least has the decency to talk her through the scans as he runs them, asking the same old pointless questions as he hums and waves his tricorder and mutters to himself. Dax finds, juxtapositionally, that it’s actually a whole lot harder to put on a brave face when Kira is there. It’s easy enough to be the wise and worldly Trill when it’s just her and baby-faced Doctor Julian, but with Kira’s hand in hers, she doesn’t feel nearly so old or so wise any more. She feels small and stupid, and suddenly it’s an uphill struggle, almost impossible, to pretend everything is fine, to force a smile when Julian asks whether his latest batch of drugs had any effect, to nod and pretend they worked perfectly well when it’s so readily apparent that they didn’t. She comforts herself as she watches his face fall that even Julian isn’t foolish enough to miss the seriousness of her condition this time; she’s well aware of how terrible she must look, and even he wouldn’t find it so easy now to pass it all off as ‘too much coffee’.

After what seems like half the morning, he sets the tricorder aside. There’s a puzzled frown on his face, and Kira must notice it too because she steps around the bed to place herself firmly between him and Dax.

“Strange,” Julian murmurs, ignoring her posturing. “Your caffeine levels have gone right up again.” He studies her carefully, with his eyes this time, not the machine. “And you’re sure you haven’t taken anything since yesterday?”

“Only what you gave me,” she tells him wearily.

“That should’ve brought your levels down,” he says. “Not up.”

Dax rolls her eyes. “Sorry,” she mutters, without the least trace of sincerity.

“Don’t worry,” he says, in the most obnoxious super-sleuth tone Dax has ever heard in her life. “We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

Dax groans her mistrust, and Kira squeezes her hand. “If you like,” she whispers conspiratorially, “I know two or three good Bajoran physicians I could recommend to Sisko as replacements…”

“That won’t be necessary,” Dax whispers back, though she doubts she sounds any more convinced than she feels right now.

Julian, bless his innocent little soul, is completely oblivious to their mutinous murmurings. “What have you done since you came to see me yesterday?” he asks. “Have you been anywhere unusual? Met with any peculiar aliens? Done anything different to your usual routine?” Dax shakes her head, but he’s not perturbed in the least. “What about your diet? Have you eaten anything odd? Had anything strange to drink? Anything that hasn’t agreed with you?”

“She wouldn’t even eat breakfast,” Kira chimes in, cynical disdain shrouded in feigned helpfulness.

“I wasn’t hungry,” Dax retorts, scowling at them both.

Julian glances briefly between them, looking contemplative. “You haven’t seen or done anything out of the ordinary at all in the last twenty-four hours?”

“Nothing.” Dax shakes her head emphatically to drive the point home, even though it makes her dizzy. “I went straight back to my quarters yesterday after you let me go, and stayed there until now.”

“Alone?” Julian presses.

There’s a subtle urgency in his voice now, like he thinks he’s on to something but doesn’t trust himself enough to say what just yet, and Dax latches onto the seriousness with a hope she knows will prove misplaced. “Until about oh-five-hundred hours or so,” she says. “Major Kira stopped by to keep me company when she came off duty…”

Julian turns quickly to Kira. “And you’ve been with her since then?”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” she huffs, and Dax finds it oddly flattering that she’s so defensive about it. “But yes.”

Apparently sensing that any further comment would probably result in threats against his life, Julian defers once more to his precious tricorder. Using the little device as a shield, he goes back to coughing and humming and studying the readouts as though they’ve miraculously started spitting out brand new information. Dax knows enough about how tricorders to know that that’s not possible, but she supposes she understands his attitude; Kira is glaring at him like he’s the source of all the misery she’s ever endured or witnessed her entire life, and he’s probably more than justified in being a little afraid of making eye-contact right now. For once, Dax can’t really judge him for wanting to hide behind his instruments.

After a few minutes, Kira finally seems to heed Dax’s request to try and play nice; she stops glowering at him, at least for the most part, and turns her attention back to her charge. Julian’s still playing with his tricorder, so Kira takes the opportunity to slide her hand down from where it rests at Dax’s back to a new place at her hip. It’s a casual move, but not very subtle, and the possessiveness in it is obvious; though Julian is making a grand show of being occupied in his readouts, it’s clear that he’s watching just the same, and Kira makes a strange growling sound as her fingers tighten. In spite of herself, in spite of everything that’s happening to her, Dax feels a flattered smile lift her lips; it’s been a long time since someone cared enough to mark her so obviously as theirs, and a longer time still since she was demure enough to let them.

“The offer still stands,” Kira hisses in her ear. “I can talk to Sisko as soon as we’re done here. Bashir will be back at Starfleet Academy before he can even say ‘tricorder’.”

Dax laughs and swats her arm. “Oh, stop it.”

Julian, it seems, is slightly less oblivious this time around, because he stops mid-sweep and gives another one of his less-than-subtle spluttering coughs. “If I may ask, Major…” he says pointedly. “Would it be possible to run some tests on you as well?”

Kira is clearly not enamoured by the idea, and she narrows her eyes with unabashed suspicion. “Why?” she demands, and Dax feels her fingers clench like vices across the curve of her hip. “So you can diagnose me with excessive caffeine consumption too?”

Julian’s lips twitch; if Dax didn’t know better, she’d swear he was smirking. “Well, as a matter of fact…”

Under any other circumstances, the look on Kira’s face would’ve been positively hilarious. “Are you joking?” she demands, and Dax has to fight to keep from rolling her eyes at the both of them. “Please, tell me you’re joking.”

“Not in the least,” Julian says coolly.

Kira snarls her disgust. “Dax, would you please tell the good doctor—”

“Look,” Julian interrupts, blessedly not giving Dax a chance to knock their heads together in sheer frustration. “Lieutenant Dax has dangerously high quantities of caffeine in her system, and it has to be getting in there somehow. Now, she says she’s not ingested it herself, and frankly at this stage I’m not sure there’s a drink that’s been invented that contains that much caffeine anyway. Now, it appears that you’re the only one who has spent any amount of time with her over the last twenty-four hours, so I’m hoping—”

“Excuse me?!” Kira, who was until that point content to spend her time glaring at Dax as if to say _”beat some sense into him, or I will”_ , spins sharply back to face him, both hands suddenly balled at her sides in white-knuckle fists and voice low and breathy with rage. “Are you accusing me of something, _Doctor_?”

“Not at all!” He holds his hands up above his head, tricorder and all, like that would do him any good at all if Kira really did set her mind on pummelling him. “I’m just trying to get to the bottom of this.”

Kira’s eyes get darker, if that’s even possible by this point, and Dax suspects it’s only her hand on her arm that’s keeping her from diving on poor Julian right then and there.

“Look,” Julian presses gently, “we both want the same thing here, Major, and that’s to see the lieutenant back on her feet and back in good health. I’m just exploring all the available avenues, and as of right now, those avenues are telling me that you’re the most likely candidate to have been exposed to whatever she has.”

Furious, but unable to contend the point, Kira hops up onto the bed beside Dax. “Fine,” she grumbles. “But make it quick. And keep those hands where I can see them. I know your type.”

Dax knows Julian’s type, too, and that’s why she keeps her mouth shut. She really wishes she could be amused by all of this, the needless and exaggerated posturing between them. It’s exactly the sort of thing she’d normally find hilarious, and if she were in her right mind, she’d be the one pulling both their strings just to see how far she could push them. This is the sort of place where she’s normally in her element — at the centre of attention and surrounded by people trying so hard to impress that they don’t even realise they’re doing the exact opposite. It’s a scenario designed for her entertainment, but she just doesn’t have the strength to feel anything other than worn out and drained by the whole thing.

It’s absurd, the way they circle each other like predators fighting over a carcass, and the metaphor just makes it even funnier because that would make her the carcass; there’s not a person in this room who would doubt that she could kick both their asses even in this state, and yet they’re posing and fighting over her like she’s a bone to be picked clean. On Julian’s part, it’s misguidedly cute, and on Kira’s it’s fiercely over-protective, and Dax knows that it should be driving her back into the depths of hysterical, delirium-driven laughter, but there’s just no more room left inside her for it. Even now, she’s still on the edge of mania, just one wrong breath away from losing it completely, but the adrenaline inside her feels like it’s bleeding away, evaporating into the too-warm infirmary atmosphere, and she can’t so much as muster a chuckle. So, instead, because she has to do something or she’ll break down completely, she just reaches for Kira’s hand and holds on as tightly as she can.

“The things I do for you,” Kira mutters in her ear as she hops up onto the bed beside her. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Dax wills her lips to twist into a quivery smile. “Thank you.”

Probably more out of fear than any actual prowess, Julian is much more efficient with Kira than he has been with Dax up to this point. By now, at least, he seems to know what he’s looking for, and it looks like he finds it almost immediately, because he’s barely even picked up the tricorder before he’s leaping back again, arms flailing and an excited sort of _‘eureka!’_ grin plastered across his face. Dax knows better than to ask what he’s found, and opts instead to just watch and wait as he makes a dash for the nearest computer terminal.

“Does he ever do anything quietly?” Kira demands, sounding thoroughly irritated.

“Not usually,” Dax replies, and massages her throbbing temples.

Julian’s babbling to himself again now, and Dax tries to shut it all out. The medical jargon is only making her headache even worse, so many words all falling over themselves as Julian rambles on and on with enthusiastic complexity. She’s sure that he knows himself what’s going on, but until he’s willing to step back and share his insights with the rest of the class, there’s nothing she or Kira can do. So, instead of worrying, Dax just sighs to herself and lets her pounding head drop down to rest on Kira’s shoulder; the positioning is a little awkward — Kira is tiny at the best of times, especially next to Dax, and her shoulder is sharp and bony — but the contact is comforting enough to offset the physical clumsiness, and Dax draws a little solace from it as Kira lets her lean, pulling her in and stroking gentle fingertips across her back.

“Thank you,” Dax whispers again, and she’s not sure whether it’s Kira’s co-operation she’s thanking her for this time, or simply her presence here at all.

Whichever it is, it doesn’t really matter, because Kira gives the same irritable grunt either way. “You owe me,” she mutters sulkily. “When this is over and you’re back on duty, I expect you to scan all of Bajor’s moons, completely and thoroughly, at least three times a day for the rest of the month.” She bares her teeth, the same predatory grin she shot Julian earlier; if possible, it’s even more calculated now than it was then. “And without a word of complaint.”

Dax smiles, honest and heartfelt, and it feels wonderful. “Anything you say, Major.”

Naturally, Julian chooses that moment to shatter the intimacy by loosing a triumphant yell at his computer terminal. The stream of self-directed technobabble comes to an abrupt end and he whirls to his feet like he’s just found the holy grail.

“A-ha!” he cries, then turns to Kira. “It seems that our dear lieutenant’s caffeine problem has found a way into your system as well, Major.”

He’s looking quite unabashedly pleased with himself, and Dax doesn’t need to look at Kira to know that she’s feeling somewhat less enthused by the whole thing. As much of a breakthrough as it may be for Julian, it’s exactly the worst possible outcome so far as she’s concerned, and her whole face crumples into despair. She looks at Dax, and Dax struggles to look back at her; her vision’s blurry and indistinct, but she can make out easily enough the startled panic on the major’s face, and she certainly can’t blame her for that. Dax is well aware of how terrible she looks, and how terrible she feels as well, and there’s certainly no shame in Kira being more than a little horrified the prospect of going through it herself.

It takes a moment or two for the implication to really sink in, and when it does, Kira’s hands seize and stiffen at Dax’s back, locked in place, and the stricken fear on her face slowly shifts to something more characteristically fearsome. Dax can see the resolve light up behind her eyes, fierce and violent, and wonders if this is what she was like on Bajor during the occupation. She’s almost frightening now, and the determination is trembling through every inch of her body without her needing to utter so much as a word: if this thing is going to take hold of her too, she will fight it tooth and nail. She will tear at it with everything she’s got, and where Dax has crumbled and collapsed, a prisoner of war against her own broken-down psyche, Kira Nerys will stand and fight, and she will win. Insomnia doesn’t stand a chance against a former Bajoran terrorist in fight mode, Dax thinks hazily, and wishes that she could be that strong too.

“What’s the prognosis?” Kira demands, all fire and fury.

Julian blinks for a moment, then laughs when he realises what she’s asking. “Oh, don’t worry, Major!” he chirps brightly. “You’re perfectly safe.”

Kira looks just about ready to beat him senseless, and this time Dax isn’t entirely sure she’d stop her if she tried. “Am I?” she demands, all gritted teeth and snarling. “Because from where I’m sitting, I don’t see much to look forward to.” She cuts an uneasy glance towards Dax, not quite apologetic but close enough. “No offence, Jadzia.”

“None taken,” Dax says. “I’m really very sorry about all of this.”

“There’s no need to be sorry,” Julian insists urgently, then turns back to Kira as though she was his patient all along. “And there’s no need to be concerned, either. I assure you, Major, you’re just fine, and you will continue to be. There’s elevated caffeine levels in your system, yes, but there’s not nearly enough of it to affect your sleep patterns like they’ve affected Lieutenant Dax’s… and if I’m right, there won’t be. Believe me, this is all very good news.”

“Good for who?” Dax hears herself ask, and she doesn’t know whether it’s her own fate or Kira’s she’s more worried about.

“Good for everyone!” Julian assures her; he pauses in his frenzied exposition for a moment to touch her shoulder, then turns swiftly back to Kira. “You’ve been together since oh-five-hundred hours, is that right?”

Kira grunts her affirmation, still looking unconvinced. “Around that time, yes.”

“Excellent. Thank you. And, if I might ask, you were in Lieutenant Dax’s quarters all that time?”

“Until we came here,” Dax confirms on her behalf with an exhausted little nod.

“Perfect!” Julian beams, running back to his computer terminal; Dax is pretty sure she’s never seen him quite so excited before, and that’s really saying something.

In a heartbeat, he’s back in full-force doctor mode, staring at the computer screen like a man possessed, fingers flying across its surface with feverish urgency. It’s kind of reassuring, actually, the passion and intensity he puts into his work when he feels that he’s on the brink of a discovery; for all that he’s a wounded puppy when feelings or personal issues are involved, and for all that he’s a child in man’s clothing when he’s off-duty, here where it really matters he’s perfectly capable of becoming a staunch medical professional. For all that Kira jokes about having him replaced, watching him now Dax wonders if they could ever find anyone more suited to the task. She hasn’t had much opportunity to see him in his natural environment, and she’s rather grateful for that, but it’s always a pleasant surprise when she does, and it gives her hope that one day, when he’s a little older and a little wiser, mature enough to cast aside his foolish notions of playing Casanova but not so old that all that exuberant optimism has withered and died, they might even become close.

Right now, of course, she’d settle just for seeing him find a cure for her current condition. Hell, she’d even thank her stars for some kind of logical explanation. Something besides ‘caffeine’, anyway; even that would still be light-years better than the nothing she’s had to live with for nearly a week, and the impossibility of what he’s given her up till now. Anything at all, however surreal, is better than this torturous purgatory of exhausted confusion, and she feels her breath quicken in her throat, anticipation swelling despite the fact that she no longer has the energy to spare for hope.

“Well?” Kira demands, cutting into Dax’s thoughts — and no doubt Julian’s as well — and tearing up her concentration.

Patience may not be Dax’s strong point right now, but she has just about enough of it left in her to wait this out. Julian is so close to something; she can feel it as surely as he can, and if patience is what he needs to mould those sweat-drops on his face into words that make sense, then, difficult as it is, that’s what she’ll give him.

Besides, she’s a scientist as well as a patient, and she knows all too well how it feels to be on the brink of something like this. Watching Julian feverishly work through whatever hypotheses are running through his head is no different to the heady dissociation she gets herself when something magical is about to happen in the lab. Curzon Dax may have had little time for scientists, but Jadzia has been one all her life, and she understands far more readily than Kira does the importance of letting Julian figure things out in his own head right now. She’s impatient too, and she has a lot more reason than Kira does to feel that way, but she’s also a researcher, a scientist and a scholar, and right now, for once, she gets it.

“Just give him a moment or two,” she hears herself say to Kira.

Kira rolls her eyes. “You scientists are all the same,” she sighs peevishly. “You’ve all got your heads up your asses.”

She has a point, there, and Dax really can’t argue with that. Not that she gets the chance to, even if she could have, because Julian chooses that very moment to whirl away from his computer once more, spinning out of his chair and back onto his feet with a grace that belies the awkward lankiness of his body and turning back to them. He’s standing in front of them again in less than a heartbeat, and the look of self-congratulatory arrogance on his face is proof enough that he’s figured something out.

“Lieutenant,” he says, sounding every inch like one of those doctors she hates so much, those stuffy old medical types with their hot hands and icy instruments; she’s willing to forgive him for it this time, though, if only because it looks like he’ll finally save her from the nightmare she’s been living these last few days. She’d forgive him anything in the universe for that. “Would you mind terribly if we took a little jaunt to your quarters?”

“Why?” Kira demands before Dax can say anything.

Julian beams, like a child with a new toy. “I have a theory.”

*

Once they get to her quarters, it takes about three seconds for Julian to confirm his so-called ‘theory’, and by that point Dax doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Naturally, the good doctor wastes no time before setting to work, sweeping and scanning her quarters with his trusty tricorder as though his own life depends on it; he’s still grinning like an idiot, for all his professional seriousness, and Dax suspects it’s only the clutch of her hand that’s keeping Kira from punching him just for daring to look so pleased with himself.

Keeping her away from Julian makes for a decent excuse, anyway, and Dax uses it to keep Kira close to her side. Whether or not Kira really needs the contact to hold her temper in check, it doesn’t matter because Dax sure as hell needs it to hold herself steady; she’s slick with sweat, her skin damp and pale, shivery chills shuddering all through her body, and the firm strength of Kira’s bony fingers as she squeezes her hand is about the only thing keeping her from complete physical collapse.

“What’s he looking for?” Kira whispers in her ear; the question is more of an outlet for her irritation than for any real curiosity, Dax knows, but she’s glad of the distraction just the same.

“Caffeine, I guess,” she murmurs in reply, and slumps against the nearest wall. “I don’t know, and to be honest I don’t really care. I just want it to be over.”

Kira seems to empathise with that somewhat, because she lets go of her hand and shifts to wrap both arms around her waist instead. It’s a gesture of support, but also an embrace, soft even in the places where her bones are sharp and her muscles hard, and Dax sags against her with a low whimpering sigh.

“It will be,” Kira promises, her voice a low hum. “If he doesn’t give us a straight answer after all of this, I’ll kick his ass all the way back to the infirmary myself.”

Dax rests her head wearily against the top of Kira’s. “You’d do that for me?”

She feels Kira’s smile, and hears the chuckle in her chest. “You bet I would.”

From anyone else, the promise of violence wouldn’t be much of a gesture; from Kira, however, it’s about the sweetest thing Dax can think of. She opens her mouth to say something, and no doubt ruin the moment with an excess of sentiment — she’s not exactly thinking clearly enough to censor herself right now, after all — but she’s blessedly cut off before she can say anything at all, as the tricorder chooses that moment to voice its disapproval with a series of loud bleeps.

“Caffeine,” Julian says, for about the billionth time, then gives Dax a warm, reassuring smile. “It’s in the air supply.”

“The air supply,” Kira echoes, deadpan, like that isn’t a big deal at all.

“I’m afraid so,” Julian says, though he doesn’t sound very ‘afraid’ of anything; quite the contrary, in fact, he still sounds positively delirious with self-directed applause. “It’s all around us. We’re breathing it in right now, as a matter of fact.”

“We are?” Dax groans. “Great. Even more caffeine in my system. Just what I need.”

“Exactly!” Julian enthuses happily. “I mean, well, not that part… but this is excellent news! Now that we know what the problem is, we can fix it.”

He’s right about that, and Dax knows it, so she wills the smile on her face to expand out, not just for Kira now but for Julian as well. “Thank you,” she mumbles.

“All part of the service,” Julian beams. “I’ll get right onto Chief O’Brien as soon as we’re done here, and ask him to run some diagnostics on the air filters. He’ll have the problem found and fixed in no time, I’m sure.”

“I hope so,” Dax says, and hates how forlorn she sounds, even now that she finally has her precious answers.

Julian takes about half a second to acknowledge that she’s speaking to him, and then he’s off again, back in his own little world. “Now, I’ve not had anyone else in complaining of your particular symptoms, so I think we can assume that the problem’s confined to your quarters…” He trails off, suddenly thoughtful in a way that Dax recognises as probably not good for her, then promptly adds, “…unless, of course, it’s an adverse reaction by the symbiont.”

“Or both,” Kira offers, helpful in a stoic sort of way.

“Or both,” Julian agrees brightly. “But whatever it is, we’ll have it all figured out and fixed in no time. So never fear, Lieutenant, you’ll soon be resting easy.”

“Resting easy…” Dax echoes, looking sadly around her toxic quarters. “But what am I supposed to do until then?”

“I suppose we can always keep you in the infirmary while Chief O’Brien works on the filters…” he suggests offhandedly. “Or I’d be happy to let you stay with me—”

“No,” Kira interrupts, firm and sharp. “She’ll stay with _me_.”

It’s not a suggestion or an offer, and it’s pretty clear from the steel-eyed look on her face that she will accept no arguments or complaints from either of them.

Relieved, Dax breathes out her gratitude in a shuddering sigh against the top of Kira’s head. Julian is a good man and a good doctor, and maybe one day he might be a good friend as well, but that’s a great distance in the future for both of them. He’s kind and thoughtful, he really is, but he has a lot of growing up to do, a lot to learn about life (and about women), and while Dax is sure that he’ll get there in his own sweet time, he isn’t there just yet. Until he does, however, she really doesn’t want to push either of their luck by sharing close quarters.

It’s not that she doesn’t trust him, of course. She does; it’s just that it’s still tentative right now, still in its formative stages, and she really doesn’t want to put either of them in a position where that fragile, still-forming trust might be challenged and broken for good.

Kira is different, though. On a number of levels, and not least of all the way that she has been Dax’s one constant through all this. It’s not about trust between them; it’s about the simple fact that Kira knows what Dax is going through right now. No matter how delirious she got, how deep the suffering, the only presence Dax has been able depend upon, the only one who’s been able to keep her grounded, to hold her steady in a world that’s become ever more unstable with every waking night, is Kira. Angry, violent, spiritual Kira. Kira, for all the conflict she’s had to endure in her life, is herself a simple and straightforward soul; her intentions are as clear as her eyes, as plain as the way her nose crinkles when she’s thinking or her jaw goes tight when she’s unhappy or her fists clench when she’s angry. She’s open, if not with her heart then at the very least with her intentions, and every word she says is honest, pointed, and relevant.

Dax has never had any reason to second-guess Kira’s motivation, her meaning or her intent. She’s never any cause to wonder what she might be thinking or whether she’s dropping hints for some unspoken thought or idea. No; with Kira, if something is worth the cost of thinking, then it’s worth the time to say it. Everything that matters to Kira Nerys is right there on the surface, vibrant and alive for everyone to see, and Dax can sort of understand why others might find that raw-nerved exposure a little grating (Curzon definitely would, she has no doubt), but right now, it’s the most reassuring thing she can possibly imagine. There’s no need to build trust with her; it’s either there, or it’s not.

The simple fact of the matter is this: right now, at this moment in time, Dax is really, really messed up. She is helpless and confused, lost inside her own scrambled thoughts, too dizzy to make any sense of even the things that should be simple, even the things as plain and honest as Kira’s crinkled nose ridges and her tightening jaw and her clenched fists. She can barely even put one foot in front of the other right now, much less actually think. In short, she’s in no condition whatsoever to deal with someone like Julian; all those double meanings and subtle flirtations make her head ache at the best of times, and right now even just the thought of them is enough to make her feel even worse than she already does.

But Kira, with her straight spine and her thin fingers, her strong and steady hands and the way that her body language speaks her mind just as clearly as her voice? Oh, Kira is a very different story. Her story is a good one, a calming fairytale where Julian is a trashy holonovel; Kira is the kind of story that starts with a traumatic childhood and ends with hard-won peace, and that is a story Dax can deal with. Where Julian’s story is cloying and convoluted, big words and purple prose that doesn’t really say anything at all, Kira’s is clear and understandable, short sentences and precision; hers is easy to swallow where his just leaves her full with a stomach ache. Kira’s story is a beautiful one, and Dax finds it deeply comforting just to be near her.

“You can stay with me,” Kira says again. She’s speaking only to Dax this time, like Julian is no longer there, and it’s only once the words have actually left her mouth that Dax realises how desperately she wanted to hear them.

“Are you sure?” she hears herself whisper, almost afraid to find out that she imagined it after all.

With a radiant smile, Kira takes her hand. “Of course I’m sure.”

*


	7. Chapter 7

Sweet man that he is, O’Brien drops everything he’s doing to run his diagnostics on her quarters.

Dax is familiar enough with the weight of his workload to know exactly how generous a gesture that is, and makes a note to thank him properly when this is over and she’s able to think clearly again. She owes him, and Julian too, but the rambling gratitude of a half-crazed Trill touched by delirium and addled by caffeine won’t mean anything to anyone, least of all two people as busy as they are; better to save it, she decides, until she’s got back enough presence of mind to buy the boys some flowers or something.

The diagnostics are run and done in record time, and the result (to nobody’s surprise) is exactly as Julian predicted. Apparently, not that Dax is really listening by this point, there’s a glitch of some description in her her quarters’ air filters, no doubt a lovely little oversight left behind by the Cardassians. Taking into account how many other niggling malfunctions the station has thrown up since they got here, Dax supposes she should be glad it’s only caffeine polluting her precious air supply, and not something a little more lethal.

The long and short of it, as Julian explains, is that every breath she’s taken in her quarters over the last week or so has sent a hit of caffeine directly into her bloodstream. It would be bad enough for a human to suffer through a week of that, he tells her wryly, but Dax is a joined Trill, and there is no humour in his voice at all when he points out that the symbiont is probably bouncing off the walls of her abdominal cavity by now.

Futile as the effort is, she knows that he’s trying to make light of it for her benefit, because that’s what his training has taught him good bedside manner is for. It may well be, but it doesn’t do any good, and she can tell that he’s worried whether he says it or not. And with good reason too, she supposes; if she’s been inhaling the stuff straight into her bloodstream, it follows that the symbiont would no doubt have picked up the brunt of it; little wonder she’s been feeling so sick and delirious, so unlike herself even beyond the realm of sleep deprivation.

It’s actually a meagre kind of comfort to Jadzia, the realisation that the weakness isn’t all her own after all, that at least some share of the trouble lies with the symbiont too — with Dax — but it’s not quite so comforting when she actually forces herself to stop and think about it. She’s been suffering enough in herself, and she wonders briefly how it’s been faring alone inside of her, reeling in unexpected and unwanted ways from a week-long overdose of an undiluted stimulant.

“It’s little wonder you can’t sleep,” O’Brien remarks, somewhat unhelpfully. “I’ll get to work fixing those air filters right away. With any luck, we’ll have everything as good as new in a day or two.”

A day or two seems like a lifetime, but at least they’re finally headed in the right direction now. Dax honestly doesn’t care how long it will be before she can sleep in her own bed again, so long as she can sleep _somewhere_ before then. She may not be a regular visitor to Kira’s quarters, but she’s comfortable enough in the major’s company by now that the unfamiliarity of the surroundings won’t be any kind of obstacle. Not that it would matter even if it were; by the time she’s physically able to sleep again, she doubts that even a herd of stampeding wildebeests would be able to stop it.

Honestly, all Dax wants is a place where she can put her head down without poisoning herself or the symbiont inside her, and she really doesn’t care how accommodating a hostess Kira tries to be. They’re not a pair of teenage girls giggling at a slumber party or little boys daring their friends to skateboard down a mountainside; Dax is far too old for such things, and Kira probably never had them to begin with. Dax just needs somewhere to stay while her own quarters are out of commission, and Kira was kind enough to offer just that: somewhere relatively quiet, somewhere she won’t be bothered or interrupted or annoyed, somewhere she can lie down in the dark, and sweat out the caffeine still humming in her system.

Julian, of course, is quick to squash her optimism. He’s studying her with that thoughtful look on his face, a sober sort of steadiness that makes it readily apparent even before he opens his mouth that neither she nor Kira are going to appreciate whatever he’s about to say.

“It’s a little early to start celebrating,” he warns her gently; his tone is unusually serious after so much self-satisfaction, and it’s like a bucket of ice-cold water thrown into her face, bracing and chilling her to the bone. “Remember, Jadzia, you’ve been breathing in caffeine like it’s oxygen for a week now. That’s enough to put anyone’s body to the limit. And, of course, taking into account your unique physiology, we can’t eliminate the possibility of withdrawal once we cut off the supply. The symbiont—”

“—can take care of itself,” Dax assures him pointedly. She’s not entirely sure that’s true, of course; she’s not really aware of any precedent for symbionts with substance addiction, and it’s not exactly the kind of thing they warned her about when she was an initiate. Still, though, she won’t let the others see that she’s uncertain; she’s shown enough weakness already this week, and she has no intention of adding any more now that they’re finally on the road to recovery. “I appreciate your concern, Julian, but the symbiont and I will be just fine.”

“I hope you’re right,” he says, but he still sounds dubious. “With any luck, once the caffeine levels start to drop off, and your biochemistry is on its way back to normal, you’ll be able to sleep off any withdrawal effects if they come up.” He gives a wry, humourless chuckle. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how desperately your body needs a good night’s sleep…”

“You really don’t,” she agrees with a tired sigh.

“Nonetheless,” he insists, diligently pursuing the issue like a dog blindly chasing its own tail, “you should brace yourself for a rough day or two, just to be prepared.”

Dax doesn’t want to hear it, but she knows him well enough by now to know that agreeing is the only way to shut him up. “Fine,” she says, stubbornly sulky. “I’ll ‘brace myself’.”

“Is there anything else we need to know?” Kira asks softly; she’s looking at Julian now, and not meeting Dax’s eye. Like always, she’s the practical one here, asking all the questions that Dax doesn’t want to think about, and the part of Dax that is still a Starfleet officer knows she’s right, that if Julian is concerned about this, maybe they should be as well, but knowing it doesn’t do much to ease the sense of betrayal. “Anything I can do for her if it does get bad?”

“It won’t get bad,” Dax tells her.

Kira squeezes her hand. It’s obvious by the look on her face that she understands Dax’s need for ignorance here, the crazed desire to be brave in this where she couldn’t be before, her resistance to the idea that she might be made even weaker before she can be strong again. Kira is a fighter; she understands better than most the feral need to stand up and fight even when the enemy is one that can’t be fought by traditional means. She knows how much it means to Dax that she not become an invalid. Not here, not now, not when they’ve finally caught the problem and taken steps to fix it. She knows how painful it is, how torturous to even think, much less accept, that it might not be all over just yet… more, that it might get worse before it gets better. She knows and understands all that, as intimately as Dax herself does. But at the same time, she’s an officer too; she may not be Starfleet, but she knows as well as any captain just how important it is to be prepared.

“ _If_ it gets bad,” she repeats pointedly, and looks to Julian again, “is there anything I should do?”

“It’s hard to tell,” Julian admits with a sigh. “I’m no expert on Trill physiology… and even if I was, I wouldn’t feel comfortable even hazarding a guess at this point. I can’t even say for certain whether there’s anything to worry about at all—”

“There isn’t,” Dax grumbles sourly.

Predictably, Kira and Julian both ignore her. “Just keep a close eye on her,” Julian goes on. “And give me a call if you notice anything worrisome.”

Dax doesn’t need to look at herself to know that her mere existence right now is worrisome enough. She feels utterly terrible, and she has no doubt that she looks even worse; withdrawal or no, there’s no doubt in her mind that she’s going to be far from an ideal houseguest, and she suddenly feels very bad for poor Kira. She’ll try to behave herself, of course, and she really is grateful for the offer, but she can feel the pull of exhaustion, the headache pounding in sick rhythm against her skull, the twisting in her belly where the symbiont lies restless and miserable, the shakiness in her limbs and the tremors in her hands, and she knows it’s only a matter of time before they overpower her. Whether or not Julian’s concerns are founded, there’s no doubt that she will face a breakdown sooner or later, and she doesn’t want Kira to be caught in the crossfire when that happens. She doesn’t want to put Kira through it, doesn’t want this woman who has already endured so much, to see her like that.

Because the thing is, Kira really doesn’t deserve any of this. She doesn’t deserve the delirious companion she’s been forced to babysit these last few days, this half-crazed and hysterical version of Dax that is nothing like the one she thought she’d signed up for. She doesn’t deserve the Dax that stands unsteadily before her now, and she definitely doesn’t deserve a Dax that is even worse. What she does deserve is something that Dax can’t give her right now: a friend, who understands just how much it’s cost her to reach out and offer this sort of kindnesses, who appreciates how much it hurts her pride and her heart to cast off the shackles of the life she’s known, to open herself up to the possibility of a new one, to turn away from the occupation and open her arms to a new home, a new place in the universe, a new life, to forge new connections with new souls based on something other than a unified need to be free. It’s taken far more out of Kira to reach out and hold Dax’s hand than it’s taken from Dax to let her hands be held, and they both know it. More than anything in the universe, Kira deserves someone who can adequately thank her for that.

Withdrawal be damned, Dax thinks hazily, she will not put Kira through the worst of her. She will not let her see any more of the weakness in her, anything that might make her think twice about what she’s offering. She will not. She can’t.

And yet, already Kira seems to be preparing herself for exactly that, like it’s inevitable. She looks like she’s marching off to war all over again, standing at attention, shoulders straight and square, back stiff and rigid, head held high. She’s taking this as a point of pride, like Dax’s well-being means as much to her as Bajor, like Dax’s health is as important as her home; that might not mean quite so much if she were anyone else, but Dax knows that to Kira Bajor is about the most important thing in the universe. She has spent her whole life fighting to protect her home and her people from the Cardassians, and she will spend these next few days fighting to protect Dax from this, and the look on her face says that this fight is just as important as that one. It steals Dax’s breath, makes her burn with fear and respect.

That Kira would place as much weight on her health, that she would spend so much of herself on something so futile, that she would see so much importance in taking care of her and keeping her safe from herself? That she would go into this as she would her responsibilities to Bajor and her people? Dax can scarcely fathom it. It’s humiliating, yes, and she feels a new kind of nausea churn in her at the thought that she’s allowed herself to become such a burden to this woman, this colleague that she’s slowly coming to see as a friend… and yet, at the same time, it is unfathomably precious.

“Kira,” she hears herself murmur, very quietly. “Are you sure about this?” She swallows. “I mean, are you really sure? You know I won’t take it personally if it’s too much trouble. You know I’d—”

“Don’t be silly,” Kira says, and squeezes her hand so tight it makes Dax’s head swim. Her face is intent but her eyes are surprisingly warm. “I’ve faced down armies of ruthless Cardassians, and far worse besides. You really think you’re going to be any trouble at all?”

“I don’t…” Dax swallows. “I don’t know.”

“Dax.” Kira closes her eyes for a moment, and when she opens them, they’re like a firestorm, a blaze of more colours than Dax has ever seen. “You’ve lived more than three hundred years, and you can’t even imagine the things I’ve lived through. Caffeine-addled or not, what’s one little Trill?”

“Less of the ‘little’,” Dax mutters, but she can’t quite keep from grinning a little. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m quite a bit taller than you.” She’s a fair bit taller than Curzon, too, as it happens, a fact that has amused her to no end since taking up residence in this body, but she supposes Kira wouldn’t be interested in hearing that, so she keeps it to herself.

“Don’t evade the issue,” Kira says. “Point is, you know I can handle you.”

“Yes, you can.” Dax takes a deep, steadying breath; this is much harder than she thought it would be. “But that doesn’t mean you have to. If you don’t want to do this, you know I’ll understand.”

Kira smiles, a tragically rare sight that will never fail to rend Dax’s heart.

“Of course I know that,” she says. “Now shut up and pack a bag.”

*

There’s nothing particularly homely about Kira’s quarters — at least, not yet — but Dax finds the sparsity kind of refreshing.

She’s not so quick to let go of things herself, and her quarters are a living homage to things best left in the past, centuries’ worth of collected nothings that she just can’t bring herself to part with. Jadzia is a fresh-carved mosaic of the Dax symbiont’s former hosts, and her home reflects that. It’s not easy for a joined Trill to be nostalgic — there are rules about that sort of thing — but Jadzia is somewhat more so than she ought to be. It’s a bad thing in the eyes of her peers, bordering on dangerous, but there is just enough of Curzon left inside Jadzia that she refuses to let herself care. She likes being nostalgic, likes remembering things she’ll never see, the rich and marvellous lives of the Daxes that came before her, lives so much more worthwhile than her own. She likes remembering things she will never be a part of, worlds she’s never seen, skills she’s never possessed. She likes thinking about their experiences, Curzon and Lela and Emony, all of them, their achievements and the wonders they’ve seen.

Well, for the most part, anyway. One of the pitfalls of nostalgia for a young host is the impossibility of measuring up to the things she remembers. Jadzia is prone to self-doubt, has always been prone to it even before she was washed out of the initiate program. She knows that her place is just to be another link in the Dax chain, however small and meek, but that doesn’t mean that she’s immune to self-loathing. Her indulgence in sentimentality is a blessing and a curse — it’s a constant reminder of things she will never be, but also of things she doesn’t need to; Jadzia doesn’t need to be Tobin or Torias or Audrid, because Dax already is.

As with all rules, there are countless good reasons why nostalgia is frowned upon in Trill society, and truth be told, a heart like Jadzia’s is the living manifestation of them all. She is still so very young, so unworldly and inexperienced; she’s still very much the little girl who got washed out of the program, and she has spent far more of her life thus far learning how to live than actually living. The best parts of Jadzia’s memory all belong to Dax. Curzon’s ferocity, Emony’s athletic prowess, Tobin’s genius… they breathe and thrive and bloom within her, painting the bland whitewashed canvas of Jadzia’s own life and filling it with vibrant colour, decorating the walls in her quarters and turning her into something far more exciting than she has any right to be. Dax’s quarters are a monument to seven lifetimes, but the mantlepiece reserved for Jadzia is noticeably lacking. It is a kindness to her sentimental heart, yes, but a curse to the life she should be living instead.

Kira’s quarters are everything that Dax’s quarters should be, everything they would be if only she could hold a little more closely to what she’s been taught. If she could just throw away Curzon’s keepsakes or Torias’s trinkets, like she was supposed to, her walls would be nearly as bare and empty as Kira’s are now. Kira’s quarters feel like a living space, comfortable and spacious and very practical, but they don’t feel like a home, and thinking too hard about it sends a confused chill down Dax’s spine, that ever-present knowledge of how she ought to live and what she ought to be.

“It’s not much,” Kira says, as though reading her mind, gesturing to the space around her.

There’s no need to go through the motions of it, they both know; Dax has been here before, and she knows very well that Kira isn’t a sentimental soul, that even if she were, she has no memories that deserve to be cherished. Still, though, she seems to feel compelled to justify her choices, to defend the simplicity of her chosen lifestyle. It makes Dax a little sad; Kira should know better by now than to think she needs to justify or defend anything about herself at all.

“It’s lovely,” Dax tells her.

“No, it’s not,” Kira replies, and there’s a harshness of her tone that suggests this isn’t about the living space at all. “But it’s good enough to put your head down after a long shift.”

“It certainly is,” Dax enthuses, mustering an exhausted smile; putting her head down anywhere sounds like heaven right now. “And anyway, we’ve not been here very long. This place isn’t home yet…”

“And it’s never going to be,” Kira snaps; the retort is reflexively abrasive, almost angry, and it bears the sharpened edges of a confession. “We may have the use of it, but this place is still a Cardassian station, and it always will be.”

Maybe if she was feeling more like herself, Dax would have argued against that. A home is what you make it, she thinks, even if it was something else before. Nothing should be condemned to carry the same taint forever, and it’s not Deep Space Nine’s fault that its corridors once echoed with the march of Cardassian boots. The station is no different than Bajor itself: a little piece of space debris once owned and beaten down by the same cruel people, and finally free. So the Cardassians occupied the place for a time; does it count for nothing that it’s Bajoran now?

And anyway, it’s not like they’ve been living here for very long yet. Long enough to get the lay of the land, sure, and perhaps for some of the more eager among them to get an idea of who they are and who their friends might one day be… but not much longer than that, and certainly not long enough to dismiss the whole station out of hand just because it used to belong to someone else. It’s a good place, Dax thinks; it carries in its centre the promise of a warm hearth, and she can’t help feeling that it’s kind of an insult to the place for Kira to dismiss so easily any merits it might have now just because she doesn’t approve of what it used to be.

“I don’t think…” she starts, but trails off. The ideas are firm and strong in her head, thoughts and opinions rooted deep and embedded within her, but her tongue is heavy in her mouth and it’s so difficult to remember what the words are supposed to sound like when she’s so exhausted. “I mean… well… I just don’t… I think you’re…” Kira touches her hand, tense but empathetic, and Dax finds just a little of her voice. “It’s just… you never know,” she sighs, surrendering the bigger point for something simpler, a half-hearted compromise she can actually articulate. “After a year or two stuck here together, we might surprise you.”

“I’m sure you will,” Kira replies, but there’s something in the edge of her voice that Dax can’t quite place, a sort of peripheral shimmer of something twisted, just beyond her perception. “But it’s not about you. It’s not about any of you Starfleet people, really. It’s about this place, this damn Cardassian station, and what it represents.”

“I know,” Dax says. “But it’s not the station’s fault that it used to belong to someone who hurt you.”

“It’s not about that!” Kira sighs, frustrated, then shakes her head. “All right, fine. It is about that.”

Dax smiles. She wants to say something else, but her tongue is heavy and stuck to the roof of her mouth.

“Look,” Kira goes on. “Maybe to you, it’s just a repossessed space station. Maybe to you, it’s a convenient little piece of floating space debris in some backwards corner of the galaxy, a useful little thing that was ‘liberated’ from the Cardassians, in a good place for you Starfleet people to keep an eye on Bajor, or on the wormhole, or on whatever else you’re under orders to keep an eye on in this sector. And that’s fine, Dax, it really is. You see what you want to see, and you tell yourself whatever helps you to sleep at night.” 

Dax flinches at that. “Ouch.” 

“Sorry. You know what I mean.” Dax affirms with a noncommittal nod, and Kira presses on. “Anyway. The point is, you Starfleet types have the freedom to see this place however you like. But to me, and to the other Bajorans living here, it’s not like that. This place isn’t just a space station to us. It’s not just a repossessed chunk of space debris liberated from some other species who did a bad thing to someone else. We _are_ that someone else, Dax, and this station was just one of the bad things that the Cardassians did to us. It’s a constant reminder of the occupation. It’s a constant reminder of everything we had to live through for so long, and the people who made it happen. It’s not just a space station, Dax; it’s a _Cardassian_ space station. And you’d better listen carefully to this, because I’m only going to say it one more time — it will never, ever be ‘home’.”

Dax hangs her head, apologetic and repentant. She has lived a great many years, probably more than half the rest of the station’s population put together, and in that time she has learned a great deal about a vast number of different things. Wisdom is a great gift, but sometimes it just means being smart enough to know that there are some things in the universe she will never understand. This, she realises, is one of them.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “I didn’t mean to bring it up.”

“It’s not your fault,” Kira sighs. “It’s just a sensitive subject.”

Dax smiles. “I understand. And, well, I’m sorry anyway.”

For a moment or two, Kira just looks at her. There’s a kind of intensity in her face now, something that isn’t quite violent enough to be explained simply by her hatred of Cardassians, or the reminder of a time she’d sooner forget. It’s like she’s looking at Dax for the first time, like she’s seeing something in her that she hadn’t seen before. They’re not quite friends yet, and Kira has made it very clear from the moment she first set foot on the station that she’s not here to make friends anyway, but there’s something in the way she’s looking at her now, eyes wider and more expressive than Dax has ever seen them, that can’t help lending itself to the possibility. She’s still as guarded as ever, face still branded by the severity that is her trademark, the hard lines of the occupation scored like scars across her brow, but she seems somehow more accepting now than she was a moment before.

“You’re not like the others,” she murmurs after a moment.

Dax knows perfectly well just how deep a compliment that is, but still she has to ask. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, like the rest of Starfleet. Like Sisko, for example. He’s so sure he understands everything about me… everything about Bajor, about the occupation, about the Cardassians. He’s so sure he understands all the hardships we had to endure just because his home planet went to war over postage stamps or something five thousand years ago. He’s so sure he understands everything that the Bajorans went through, everything the Cardassians put us through, just because he cracked open a history book for three minutes at the Academy. He thinks he’s so damn worldly, that he’s lived so damn much…” She sighs. “But he hasn’t. And he’s so… he’s so damn sure that he knows everything there is to know, that he refuses to hear me when I tell him he doesn’t really know anything. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell him that he can’t possibly understand, that no-one can understand unless they’ve lived it… he still won’t listen to me.”

“He will,” Dax promises. “Kira, I’ve known Benjamin Sisko for many, many years. Give him some time. I promise you, he will get there.”

Kira snorts her disdain. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she says, not for the first time. “And never, ever make them for other people.”

“I think I’ve earned the right to put a few words into Benjamin’s mouth,” Dax counters. “We’ve known each other long enough, after all.”

“Maybe that’s true,” Kira replies huffily, “but that doesn’t change the fact that he won’t listen to me now. He’s just like the rest of them, all those Starfleet types who just don’t listen. They don’t want to hear that they might be wrong, that they might not know what’s best for a people who have been forced to—” She cuts herself off with a frustrated sigh. “Ugh. I’m sorry, Jadzia.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Dax says. “I may not agree with you about Benjamin and the others, but it’s very sweet that you think I’m different.”

Kira shrugs again. “Maybe. But we shouldn’t be talking about this at all.” She sighs, leans forward to push a strand of hair back from Dax’s face. “You look like hell, and I’m sure all this political talk isn’t making you feel any better…”

“Actually, it is.” Though it hurts to talk, she can’t quite keep from grinning, because the words are so true. “Kira, you’re… this… I’m…” Her lungs are on fire, though whether it’s with the effort of trying to make sense or simply the strain of breathing, she has no idea. “Look, Kira. You’ve been honest with me, so I’ll be honest with you. Talking to you like this… about the station, about Benjamin, about the occupation… it’s the closest thing to normal I’ve felt in over a week.”

Kira almost smiles. Not quite, of course, but close enough that it counts. “You have a very frightening definition of ‘normal’, Lieutenant.”

“Don’t I know it.” Dax laughs, but the sound is strained and unsteady, still so close to the mania that still hasn’t quite left her. As hard as she’s worked to stave it off, the exhaustion is starting to catch up with her again, and along with it the hysteria and the misery. That’s the trouble with finding normality in conversation, she thinks; once the conversation starts to flag, so too does the glimmering shard of normality, the almost-coherence that feels too good to be true right now. She doesn’t want it to end, doesn’t want to lose it now that she’s found it.

Inexplicably dizzy with the effort of thinking, she steadies herself against the nearest wall, and tries to breathe. Kira watches her, worried, but doesn’t move to her side just yet. “Dax?”

“I’m okay.” She closes her eyes for a moment, realises the mistake when the ground pitches beneath her, and hunches forward to brace on her knees. “Thanks again for having me,” she adds quickly, flailing for a new distraction, anything however trivial to keep her from thinking about how close she is to a complete collapse. “I know you don’t think it’s much, letting me stay here… but even if you don’t think it’s home yet…” She catches the warning flash in Kira’s eye. “…and even if it never will be… it’s still your personal space, and I know how much you value your privacy. So, well…” With an effort, she straightens up, shrugging with her whole body. “Thank you.”

Kira opens her mouth. There’s a curt _“you’re welcome”_ already half-formed on her lips, but something seems to stop her before she has the chance say it. Instead, she rests a hand on Dax’s shoulder, and the momentary reprieve is gone in an instant as her face clouds over with worry.

“You should sit down,” she says. “You don’t look well.”

“You’re full of compliments,” Dax quips, but she lets Kira lead her to a nearby chair just the same. “I’m okay, really. It’s just… well, it’s been a very long week.”

“I know it has.”

And there it is. The awkwardness and the unease, the uncomfortable _‘what now?’_ , all those things that point towards the abyss. It’s exactly what she was afraid of, the gaping void where silence lives, and Dax can feel the tendrils of fear working their insidious way into her chest, binding her lungs and making it hard to breathe. She wants to fill the void, to fill the silence, but all she can think of is crazed laughter and hysterical sobbing, and she can’t do that again; she won’t go back there, won’t lose herself to the mania again, won’t drown in her own delirium, won’t force Kira to watch it happen all over again. Not again. Not again…

“Kira,” she starts, but she doesn’t know what else to say and her mind has gone blank with fear.

“I’m here,” Kira murmurs, because it’s all she has.

“Talk to me,” Dax begs, sudden and urgent. “Tell me about the occupation. Tell me about the Cardassians, about how much you hate them. Tell me…”

Kira sucks in a breath, anger mixing now with the concern. “Dax, I really don’t think—”

“Or don’t.” Dax rushes on quickly. “We don’t have to talk about that. You can tell me how much you hate Starfleet instead. Tell me how you think Benjamin is a bad commander, or how you think Julian is a bad doctor, or all the Bajorans you think could do better than him. Tell me what you think about Constable Odo, or Chief O’Brien, or how much you hate me for not taking Bajor’s moons seriously. Tell me I’m the worst scientist you’ve ever seen, for all I care.” She can feel herself shaking, the tremors rocking through her body and rippling inside of her. “Tell me anything you like. I don’t care what. Just talk to me.”

“Dax.” Kira lays a steadying hand on her arm, but doesn’t lean in. “Jadzia. You’re losing it again.”

“I know.” The confession hurts, but not nearly as much as the silence does. “I know I am. I just…”

She reaches out blindly, hands grasping and groping in the space between them, and Kira doesn’t utter so much as a word of complaint as Dax grabs her and pulls her in close. She’s the one who’s being fierce now, the one suddenly channelling all her inner violence, fingernails digging in deep, too deep and too sharp and she knows it must be painful but she can’t stop. She can’t let go, can’t let Kira get away, can’t lose the one thing she has, the only chance for sound in this quiet room of spirituality, this place where nostalgia is forbidden. She can hear her breath, too loud in this hollow room, and Kira’s too, but it’s still not enough. It’s not nearly enough; she needs words, needs sound and substance, needs anything she can get her hands on. And so she squeezes tighter, harder, uses all the strength Curzon picked up from his Klingon friends, all the physicality Emony poured into her gymnastics, everything she has, until she knows it has to hurt, until Kira draws in her breath and hisses.

“Dax.”

“I’m sorry,” she blurts out. But she’s not sorry at all, and she doesn’t ease up her grip even a little. “I’m sorry, Kira. I just…”

“Dax.” Her voice is sharper this time, and so are her eyes. “Let go.”

“Kira, I…”

“ _Now_.”

It’s just one word, but it cuts into Dax’s mind like a command — not like a Starfleet order, all careful curtness and pointed punctation, but a Bajoran one, militant and edged with the threat of brutality — and Dax can tell that it’s hurting her almost as much to speak like that now as it is to endure the pressure of Dax’s hands, bruising and marking as she clings to her. Dax wills herself to pull back this time, forces her vicelike fingers to loosen their impossible grip, tries to see through the haze of moisture in her eyes. _Tears_ , she thinks dully; they really are tears, and that means she really is going to cry again.

“Kira, please…”

“Dax.” At last, her voice softens. “ _Jadzia_. I’m here, I promise. But you need to calm down.”

“I can’t,” Dax confesses wretchedly, and there’s that familiar sting again, the pricking of tears behind her eyes, and she won’t let them fall, she can’t, she won’t… “I can’t calm down, Kira. I can’t…”

The truth of it strikes her almost like a blow, and her whole body flinches and jerks, terrified. She’s got her head in her hands, now, face obscured by her shaking fingers, as much the product of shame as it is of panic and pain. She knows how terrible she must look, how close to the edge (if not already over it), knows how worried Kira must be (for all that she pretends not to care very much at all), and she knows above all else how much of a burden this is… how much of a burden _she_ is.

She doesn’t want that. She doesn’t want to be a burden; not on Kira, or on anyone else. For all their faults, none of Dax’s previous hosts were burdens, not ever; even in his declining years, almost too old to do anything at all, Curzon was never weak like this, never pathetic, never a burden on others. His pride still sticks in her mind and lodges in her throat, caught like a bone or a piece of shrapnel, and she can’t shake free of it. She will not be a burden here. She can’t be.

No. That’s why she needs Kira to keep talking, or else she’ll keep talking herself. Rambling, if she has to, pointless delirium-driven babble. Anything, anything at all to fill up those terrifying silences, words and nonsense and craziness. She’ll spill out her thoughts into the air, air so thick and heavy but not with caffeine, not here, not where Kira is. She’ll fill up every last molecule of space with things that don’t matter. They’ll talk through it all, Bajoran politics for Kira and sardonic quips for Dax, transporter blueprints for O’Brien or cocktail recipes for Quark, crew rotation schedules, holosuite programs, security protocols, or anything else, anything at all. Anything. Anything to keep them both distracted, Dax from herself and Kira from the way she’s losing it (and not even ‘losing’ any more; by now, she’s lost it completely). Anything to keep the world from pitching and yawing beneath her, anything to keep her grounded and sane, anything keep Kira from seeing how violently she’s shaking. Anything, anything, _anything_ —

“Jadzia.”

—but of course Kira cuts through it all, carves the words apart before they’re even formed, slashing them all to pieces like they’re made from paper, like they’re worthless, like they mean less than nothing, like it’s not even worth the trouble of shaping them. Worse than all of that, like she doesn’t understand at all, and Dax wants to whimper at that, to argue and struggle against it. She wants to remind Kira that she does understand, she does, and that’s why they’re here… but that would be just more words, more fuel for Kira to tear apart. And she does, pressing a finger to Dax’s lips before she can say anything at all, trapping the worthless words inside and stealing her breath.

It’s insane to think that she could hide anything from Kira, to imagine that she could keep her from seeing the worst of her just by spilling words into the fractured spaces between their mouths. It’s insane to think that Kira isn’t the most perceptive person on the whole station, to assume like an idiot that she didn’t see this coming before she even agreed to take her into her quarters in the first place. It’s insane… but then, of course, Dax herself is kind of insane right now, too, so maybe that kind of fits. In a surreal, twisted sort of way, it fits as well as Kira’s slender fingers wrapped around her own, and she presses herself against the unyielding bone of Kira’s frame, again and again, like she has too many times already, and she lets Kira take her in here too, take her into her body like she has her quarters (her home, whatever she wants to call it), like it’s become so natural for her to do, like any of this is natural to either of them, like it’s okay for Dax to be so weak or Kira to be so warm or either of them to be here now, like it’s okay for any of this to be happening at all, like either one of them can even remember what it feels like to be okay at all.

“Jadzia,” Kira whispers again, and then again.

She’s holding her so close now, as close as she possibly can, and the sound of her name, rich and raw and broken on Kira’s tongue is enough to drive the tears out again, and guttural howling sobs with them, and then of course it’s all over. Once it starts, she can’t stop; just like the words, the tears won’t stop, can’t stop, might never stop again, and she tries so hard — so hard, so very hard — but it all catches up with her so fast that there’s nothing she can do but fall and break.

“I can’t…” she sobs. “I can’t.”

“I know,” Kira whispers, and she does.

*

The tears stop eventually, like they always do, but the shaking doesn’t.

Dax is still talking, or trying to talk, though she can’t even pretend that the words make any sense any more; it’s just nonsense, plain and simple, a relentless cascade of delirious babble that doesn’t end no matter how desperately she needs to breathe through it. Her teeth are chattering, too, so what little cohesion the words might once have had is well and truly gone by the time they’re out in the air, each syllable taking seconds at a time to stutter out through the spasming of her jaw, and she’s not even sure why she’s clinging to them any more when the damage is already done, but she has to cling to something, and words are as good as anything else in the haze her mind has become.

With all the patience of a dozen saints, Kira holds her through it all. Though she must be almost as uncomfortable as Dax is by now, she doesn’t utter so much as a word of complaint; she just holds on, holds Dax as tightly as she needs or as kindly as she wants, lets her hands wander with restless abandon wherever Dax’s body guides them, alternately soothing and strengthening by turns. She doesn’t even try to interrupt the tide of rambling any more, but she doesn’t offer any input of her own either. She doesn’t say anything of substance at all, only her name — always _“Jadzia”_ , never _“Dax”_ — over and over again, the blissful rhythm of those three elusive syllables like an ancient boat on a perfectly calm sea, gently rocking, until it’s all Dax can hear, all she can think, and all that she knows.

Once, and only once, when the stream of words stills for just a heartbeat, Kira dares to venture a breathless _“I’m here”_. It means the world for the moment it’s out there, but then it’s gone, replaced once more by the hushed tremor of her name. And that’s all, that’s as far as it goes, and then Kira is silent once again, rocking both their bodies in time with the shallow hitching of Dax’s breath and the tremulous fever of her nonsense.

“I can’t do this,” Dax forces out at last, over the rattling of her bones and the pounding of her head. “I can’t do this, Kira.”

“Shh, Jadzia…” Kira whispers dutifully. 

That’s all, as always. Just _‘shh’_ and _‘Jadzia’_ ; nothing more and nothing less, and yet somehow it’s enough. It wraps itself like a bandage around what little remains of Dax’s mind, binds her shredded sanity up tight, and stills for a breath or two the shuddering inside her head. It can’t heal her body, but it can quiet her thoughts, if only for a moment or two, and give her a few seconds of peace.

It’s just exhaustion, she tells herself, again and again until she has no choice but to believe it. Julian may have tried to frighten her into submission with talks of symbiont withdrawal, but Dax knows her own body, and she’s been on the brink of this for days. She has been staring it down almost since it began, hour after hour, minute after minute, with every breath and every nerve and everything in her, fighting it off with every ounce of strength her failing body has left, struggling against it like an enemy in combat, and sometimes, yes, sometimes even submitting to it. Because yes, it’s beaten her once or twice already; this is not the first time she’s lost control since this began, and it doubtless won’t be the last. But she has come back every time, broken back to the surface renewed and still alive, and she will do so again. As long as Kira is here to hold her and whisper her name, she will break down these breakdowns again and again and again.

Because that is the crux of it. Kira. Kira, who has been the only constant in all this, who alone has borne witness it all, even to the worst throes of moments like this. Kira, the only one to see her when the adrenaline-pumped reason that comes with talking to Julian or Benjamin wears off and leaves her half-dead, broken and lost in the sea of delirious mania. Kira, who has been with her through all of it, even through this, and it’s only now, as the horrible feeling escalates and radiates, tearing out of her in tremors and shudders and nonsensical whimpers that might once have been words, that Dax realises how completely Kira has saved her.

“Thank you,” she manages; it’s distorted by the chattering of her teeth, and so she tries again. “Kira. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Shh, Jadzia…” Kira whispers again.

It’s all she says, maybe all she feels like she can say, but it’s enough. For now, at least, it’s enough to keep Dax grounded, enough to keep her safe and strong as another series of spasms tears through her body, enough to keep her breathing when the moment passes and she’s left worn down and exhausted. _Enough_ , and when she feels a solid splash of moisture strike like rain against her cheek, she knows that for once the tear isn’t one of hers.

“Are you crying?” The question comes to her by instinct, and she instantly bursts out laughing at the utter stupidity of it.

Kira’s breathing is laboured, heavy where her chest presses in pulsing waves against the heat of Dax’s side. “No,” she answers quietly, when Dax’s half-mad giggles subside. “No. I’m not crying.”

“You’re a horrible liar.” Dax laughs again, swallowing hard to keep the mania at bay before it explodes yet again. “You are. You’re crying.”

“Dax.” She sounds like she’s pleading, and the thick weight in her voice bears down like lead on them both. “Jadzia. Don’t.”

But, of course, she does. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t!” It sounds like a command, an order, like something she’d hear from Benjamin, or maybe something Benjamin would hear from Curzon. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare apologise to me! For the love of the Prophets, Dax, don’t you dare tell me you’re sorry!”

This isn’t the Kira Nerys who offered to let Dax stay with her, the emotional almost-friend who held her hand in the infirmary and held her body behind closed doors, the soft-hearted and steel-souled Bajoran who made witty remarks when Dax needed them and turned on the sweetness when she needed that instead; it’s not the Kira Nerys who has watched her laugh and cry and lose control, who talked her through the exhaustion and held her through the trembling, who kept the pain and the tears and the exhaustion at bay simply by whispering her name. This is none of those people. This is Major Kira, former Bajoran terrorist and first officer of Deep Space Nine, and she means business.

And yet, despite herself, Dax can’t obey. “I’m sorry,” she says again, and for a moment she’s sure that she can hear Tobin’s voice echoing in her own. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop it!” With force enough to bruise, Kira takes her by the chin and turns her face upwards, holding her fast until she has no choice but to meet her gaze, to look deep into the salt-soaked fire behind her tears. “Dammit, Dax! You have nothing to be sorry for!”

“You’re crying,” Dax babbles pathetically. “You’re crying because of me.”

Kira’s eyes are like liquid flame, a supernova flaring out and bursting with danger and warning and violence, but doused and drenched with salt and pain and sorrow, terrible and horrible things, and Dax knows that they are all her fault. Kira has shed enough tears already in her life; she has felt enough pain and seen enough violence; she has been enough fire and enough salt, has been and seen enough of everything. She has suffered enough for all seven of Dax’s lifetimes, has been broken and bent and burned out under the occupation, strained at the salt-stained leash of oppression, cried until it was all over, and ‘over’ is exactly what it should be. It should be over now, finished; Kira shouldn’t have to cry any more. She shouldn’t have to feel anything at all any more if she doesn’t want to, and it’s Dax’s fault that she is feeling now.

“Yes!” Kira shouts, furious. “Yes, I’m crying!”

“I’m sorry,” Dax whispers again, and she has never meant anything more in all her seven lives. “I’m so, so sorry…”

“Don’t!” Kira is close to mania herself now, Dax realises. “It’s nothing to be sorry about! In fact, it’s hilarious!” She laughs, but there’s no humour to the sound; in fact, she sounds nearly as hysterical as Dax. “Look at me! Me! The big bad Bajoran rebel who fought off hundreds of rampaging Cardassians! The heartless terrorist who shed more blood in a year than you’ve probably seen in all your hundreds of lives! All those deaths by my hands, Lieutenant, and I didn’t even blink, much less shed a tear, over any one of them! I’d do it again, in fact, a hundred times over, and I still wouldn’t cry!” She’s panting, and Dax realises that her own pulse is racing in empathic tandem. “But look at me now! Kira Nerys, resistance fighter extraordinaire, crying over a stupid stubborn Starfleet Trill!” She laughs again, but it’s controlled now, bitter and calloused. “For the love of the Prophets, you’re not even Bajoran! You’re not one of us! Why should I care if you had too much coffee? Why should I care if you can’t sleep for a few days? Why should I care about you at all?”

“You don’t,” Dax says quietly; her heart is pounding fit to explode, but she will not back down from the truth if that’s what Kira wants. “You don’t care. I don’t mean anything to you. Nothing on this station means anything to you. You said it yourself.”

“I did!” Kira cries, and she sounds even more feverish than Dax feels. “I did say that! And it’s true! I don’t care about you! I don’t care about any of you!”

Dax struggles for breath. “So why are you crying?”

“Because you got into my head!” Kira roars, and it’s like the tortured scream of a dying animal. “You and your stupid smile and that ridiculous cock-eyed optimism and the way you talk to Sisko… hell, the way you talk to _me_! You act like everyone here is your best friend, like everything’s so damn wonderful! You act like we’re all some kind of family, when you don’t even know us at all. You don’t even know the first thing about me, Dax, but the way you talk to me… the way you look at me… when you smile at me… it’s like none of that even matters.”

“Because it doesn’t,” Dax says, tremulous.

“It’s like you do know me,” Kira goes on, like she hasn’t heard her. “Or you think you do, anyway. It’s like you’re not just looking at me, you’re looking _into_ me… like you’re looking at everything I’ve ever done, everything I went through during the occupation, everything I did to survive, everything I had to do… all of it… like you’re looking at everything that’s made me who I am, and it’s not like Sisko or the others, those Starfleet idiots who don’t know when they’re wrong, it’s like…” She shakes her head. “It’s like you really do know. You really do. And I hate that you do. I hate that you can look at me and know all about my life and what I’ve been through. You shouldn’t be able to do that! I didn’t give you permission to do that!”

“I’m sorry,” Dax says, for the thousandth time, but Kira ignores her just like before.

“And you’re in pain,” she goes on, like Dax needed reminding of that. “You’re in pain, and you’re suffering, and all because some stupid Starfleet nobody in Engineering didn’t think to check whether or not the air filters in your quarters were working properly before they let you move in there. And it’s not… it’s not fair. It’s not fair, and it’s not right. Not for anyone, but especially not for you.” Dax opens her mouth, but all she can do is whimper as Kira glares past her, not seeing her at all. “Not _you_ , dammit! All you’ve done since you got here is be nice. Not just to me, but to everyone. To Bashir and O’Brien and… and that’s all. It’s the only thing you’ve done. And it’s not because you have to, because Starfleet wants to make a good impression, or because their precious admirals want to hear that everyone’s getting along, that everything’s fine and wonderful, even if it’s not. You’re not nice because it’s your job, or because it’s a part of your orders, or anything like that. You’re nice because… because you want to be! Because being nice is just who you are! Because you’re… because you’re a good person. You’re a good person, Dax, with a good heart, and this place needs people like you. And it’s… it’s not fair. It’s not fair that you have to suffer like this when the only thing you’ve done since you got here is be nice. It’s not fair that you have to suffer, and it’s not fair that I have to watch.”

“You don’t have to watch,” Dax tells her softly, though she can tell that Kira’s too far gone to listen to her any more. “I can go to the infirmary, or—”

“That’s not the point!” Kira is crying in earnest now; her tears are large and messy, unchecked, and they leave salt stains on everything they touch. “Don’t you understand? Don’t you get it? It’s supposed to be over!” Her hands are balled into fists, and the part of Dax that is still able to think at all marvels at the fact that she’s not hitting anything. “Why can’t you understand that? The occupation is over! It’s _over_! Good people aren’t supposed to be hurting any more!”

The silence that falls over them both when she’s finally spent is nothing like the terrifying, oppressive silence of before. This one is heavy and poignant, and it actually means something. For a long moment, Dax has no idea what to do or say; there is so much she wants to, but none of it will come. Her guilty conscience tosses and turns in twisted rhythm with the symbiont in her belly, and she aches to just lean in and wrap her arms around Kira, to hold her like Kira has held her these past few days. She wants to be the strong one, the brave and stoic one, the supporting shoulder, like she always has been before, like she’s supposed to be. But she knows, without having to try it, that if she leans forward even so much as an inch, she will lose what little control she has left, what tiny shred of herself is still holding itself together, and she will break again. If she wraps her arms around Kira now, she will be the one to collapse; she’ll break down and fall apart, just like the last time and the time before that, and Kira will be left to hold her instead, strengthening and steadying her again and again and again. Kira, who has had enough strength for seven lifetimes, will again be the one forced to dig deep and find more, to feed it like water to Dax, who has lived those seven lifetimes in full but doesn’t even have the strength for one.

Dax is not strong enough to support herself, much less Kira as well, and she hates that. She hates the way that Kira’s looking at her now, like she’s something good, because it’s wrong. Kira is so completely wrong, on so many levels, and it breaks Dax’s heart to think of it. How can Kira think she’s such a good person when she can’t even offer her open arms?

As if from across a gaping chasm, she hears her voice. “There will always be good people hurting. You can’t stop that, and you can’t make it fair.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Kira says, and the bitterness in her is so potent now that it wraps around Dax’s throat like a noose, strangling.

“I know,” she says. “But it’s okay. If it makes you feel better, I’d sooner it was me hurting than someone else, so…”

She shrugs and leaves the rest of the sentence unuttered, not least of all because she can’t really think of a satisfying end. It’s not exactly a lie, but it’s not exactly true any more either; maybe it would have been a few days ago (she’s always had something of an honourable streak, damn Curzon and his infatuation with the Klingons for that), but even Dax isn’t enough of a diplomat to sell the lie now. Fact is, right now she probably wouldn’t turn it down if someone else did offer to take some of her suffering for a while. She is beyond exhausted, beyond delirious, and way beyond sense. She’s sure as hell beyond honour, and the real truth of it right now is that she actually kind of agrees with Kira. The whole damn thing really isn’t fair at all, and she would give almost anything within her power just to make it all stop. There’s just about enough of Curzon’s integrity left to keep her from actively trying something stupid, of course, but even that isn’t enough to turn those empty reassurances into truth, and Kira must surely see that.

Even if she does, though, she’s kind enough not to comment on it. “I just feel so helpless,” she says instead. “You’re going crazy, and there’s nothing I can do but hold your hand and pretend that it’s all going to be okay.”

Dax musters a watery smile, courage that she doesn’t feel overshadowing the fear that she does. “It will be,” she says, and wills herself to believe it, for Kira’s sake.

She’s not sure when she found the calmness in her voice again, when her mania started to inch its way back again, retreating like the tide, or when Kira’s strong supporting arms started to tremble instead of hers, but she doesn’t care. If she can focus on this, on making Kira believe that things will work out, that everything will be all right, that one day this temporary sanity will become permanent again… if she can just focus on believing the lies, maybe it will keep her from focusing on the real truth, the exhaustion and the headaches and the tremors, the sickness in her soul and the delirium that even now still threatens to rend her aching mind from her body.

“It will be okay,” she says again, for both of them. “I promise.”

Kira snorts through her tears, a chiding half-laugh. “What have I told you about making promises you can’t keep?” she mutters.

Dax musters a weak laugh. “Well, then,” she says; her voice is quavery, but it’s still so much stronger than she feels. “It’s a good thing I plan on keeping this one.”

“You stupid, stubborn Trill.” It’s an insult, yes, but the affection in it runs thicker and deeper than blood. “You’d better.”

*


	8. Chapter 8

By the time morning breaks over them, the dreaded withdrawal has well and truly kicked in.

She’s fought it as best she can, pretended that it wasn’t an issue, resisted the danger. She’s tried to ignore the warning klaxons sounding all through her body, her exhaustion battering against the wall of her skull and the symbiont suffering in her belly. She has done everything she possibly can to keep it from happening, to hold the animal howls at bay, to insist that she knows her own body better than some silly young doctor fresh out of the Academy, to make everyone believe that a little exhaustion is all she has to worry about. She has tried so hard, but of course her body takes her in the end, as it always does. And now she finds that she’s lost again, helplessly caught in the thrall of this thing that is so much stronger than she is, drowning in it before she even realises that it’s there at all. 

The worst part, of course, is that it means Julian was right.

Kira holds her through the night, of course. She’s admirably patient, hushing the feverish cries stalling in Dax’s throat, easing the tremors wracking her body, wiping away the sweat that beads on her brow and drenches her clothes. She’s patient, ever patient, patient in a way that she shouldn’t have to be. She has survived a war; the days for patience should be long behind her, and yet in this she is as patient as anyone Dax has ever met.

It can’t last forever, though. Kira still has a job to do, and she’s due to go on duty at oh six hundred hours. Though she hates herself for being so infantile, Dax trembles at the thought that she will be alone.

Like always, Kira is perfectly in tune with her distress; she’s acutely aware of how helpless Dax has become, how small and weak, how much like a child, and she does her best to soothe her. She even offers, not for the first time, to take some time off, today and maybe tomorrow as well; Dax knows perfectly well how much of a blow that is to her sense of duty, but she would do it in a heartbeat with just a word. She offers, with honesty and sincerity, to contact Commander Sisko immediately, to explain the situation and tell him that Dax needs her. There is no doubt in either of their minds that Benjamin would accept the request without so much as a word, and that knowledge rends a wound in Dax’s pride deeper even than this shameful reliance on Kira.

But then, after all, it’s no secret on the station that Dax is a particular weakness of Benjamin’s. She is one of his oldest friends, a confidant and mentor. She’s a father figure, as laughable as the concept is in this young woman’s body (and all the more so now in her present condition), and Benjamin would do anything, or let anyone else do anything, if he thought for a second that it might make the old man feel better. Kira knows that just as well as Dax does, and she’s not above taking advantage of it.

Besides, it’s not like it would be any trouble to any of them if Kira did take a day off once in a while. It’s not like the station is overflowing with important things to do at the moment; for the most part, they’re all still focused on the rudimentary but necessary little tasks of getting the run-down old station back on its feet again — tearing out old panels and putting in new ones, fixing burned out conduits and broken-down systems, finding their feet and scrabbling for a place in this new end-of-the-galaxy commission; truth be told, there’s more for Dax to do than there is for Kira. Really, though they’ve admittedly not been here too long, Dax is starting to suspect that the only really important role on board is Quark’s; so long as the Ferengi’s bar is well-stocked and his customers are kept content, Deep Space Nine could be hit by a Cardassian firestorm and nobody but Kira would even so much as bat an eyelid. Fact is, a day or two without the first officer’s glowering presence at Ops wouldn’t do any harm to anyone.

But that doesn’t mean it would be right. Dax knows it, and Kira certainly knows it. There’s no disguising the way her eyes go dark when she makes the offer, or the way her jaw tightens with frustration. She’s giving herself up to something she doesn’t want to do, turning away from her own feelings for a greater good she never wanted to be a part of. _“I’ll do it if I have to,”_ she’s saying, _“but that doesn’t mean I’ll be happy about it”_. It’s a compromise, an offer extended because she knows how much it would mean to Dax, because she understands how desperately she needs the companionship, her arms and her words and herself. She’s not surrendering to this freely or willingly or because she wants to; on the contrary, she’s doing it because there’s some crawling unpleasant part of her that secretly thinks she needs to, that Dax will fall to pieces if she’s not there to hold her together.

The worst part is, there may well be some truth in that. Dax is certainly not in any condition to pretend she can get by on her own, not any more. But she is still a Starfleet officer, and she still knows how much it means to Kira to keep putting one foot in front of another in this strange new existence she has been thrown into. She’s still a joined Trill, too, and she has lived long enough by now to understand that there are more important things in life than her own well-being. She’s still _Dax_ , and she is sure as hell not going to make Kira shirk her responsibilities — to the station, to Benjamin, and to herself — just on the off-chance that silly little Jadzia is too weak to take care of herself for a few hours.

“I’ll be fine,” she insists, then sighs as Kira’s eyes go dark and narrow. “Well, maybe not so fine. But I’ll live.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.” She musters something that might have passed for a smile a week ago. “Besides, we both know you could use a break. I’m not the best company right now.”

Kira cups her chin, tilts her face up until Dax has no choice but to meet the steady steel of her gaze. “Yes, you are.”

“Flatterer.” The words may be empty, but Dax finds comfort in them just the same. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We both know I’d never let you stay home and have fun when you’ve got work to do. You really want to leave Benjamin unsupervised up there?”

Kira chuckles. “Or O’Brien, for that matter…”

“Exactly.” Dax closes her eyes, and instantly regrets it. The room swims and she swallows hard. “So go on. Get out of here, before I change my mind.”

The affection that bleeds from Kira’s fingertips as she wipes away the sweat from her brow is so instinctive, so pure and natural that it pricks like tears behind Dax’s eyes. The echo of the touch lingers even after Kira takes her hand back, and Dax burns the sensation into her mind, clings to it like a child to a security blanket, holds it close and memorises how it felt, in the hope that it might keep her safe when she’s left alone. She wants to thank Kira for the memory, but she can’t remember how to say the words.

“All right,” Kira says after a tender beat. “I’ll go. But you have to promise me that you’ll call Doctor Bashir if you need anything at all.” Dax hesitates a beat too long thinking about it, and the soft curves of Kira’s face turn instantly to stone. “I mean it, Jadzia. Promise me.”

“Fine,” she grumbles. “I promise.”

To her credit, she does sort of mean it. She wants to, anyway, if only because she wants Kira to know that she can trust her, that she will hold fast to her promises once they’re made, that she will not see a promise unkept, however grudgingly. If she gives her word (to Kira, if not to anyone else) then she will do everything she can to see it honoured. She wants so much to honour this, to keep the promise even as it’s dragged out against her will. She really wants to…

It’s just that, when push comes to shove, Dax has always been a prisoner of her pride, impossibly stubborn and viciously hot-tempered. Maybe there’s a part of her that realises it, even as she says the words, that hears the illicit promise and knows it’s hollow and false, that it is beyond her power to keep it. Maybe Kira can see all of that in her, but if she does she pretends she doesn’t; she turns away this time, and makes no effort to make Dax take it back.

Apparently, Dax thinks with a touch of sourness, it’s not so unacceptable to make empty promises if they’re the right kind of empty.

Once she’s alone, she tries yet again to close her eyes. It’s been about a day since she last saw her quarters, and the dull flutter of homesickness is there under the surface of her skin. She misses all those silly nostalgic little trinkets, the things that were Lela’s and Audrid’s, Tobin’s and Torias’s; she misses her furniture, the chairs and tables in different places, the bedroom on the opposite side of the room. She misses the smell of her sheets, the hum of her replicator, the ambient music she asked the computer to play. She misses it all, and yet the sensation is strangled almost completely by the headiness of the caffeine dissipating and dissolving inside of her.

She is very dizzy, sleepy now as well as just exhausted, and she’s hoping against hope that Julian might have been onto something after all when he suggested that she might be able to sleep off the withdrawal that she knows is coming for her. Certainly, it feels like a more natural kind of tiredness now; her veins aren’t humming with adrenalised electricity any more, and the pounding in her head feels a little less like explosions and a little more like drumbeats. It won’t last for long, she’s as sure of that as she’s ever been of anything… but for now, it feels almost like the kind of exhaustion that might yet be fixed.

It’s a vain hope, of course, because nothing is ever so simple, but hope is hope, and she will cling to it until the end of her days.

She manages to keep her eyes shut for about ten or twenty seconds this time, which is more than she’s managed before, but then it starts to feel like she’s drowning, like her head is being held under something thick and heavy, something cloying and wet, water or dry ice or gas, but solid enough that she can’t breathe through it. Claustrophobia takes her by the throat as the blackness closes in around her — she wants the peace and tranquillity of the dark, but the abyssal nothingness that isn’t quite sleep frightens her — and she wrenches her eyes open again, panting and struggling against invisible assailants.

Breathless and heaving, she tries to roll over, and before she even knows what’s happening she’s fallen right out of the chair and onto the floor. It’s as good a place as any to find respite, she supposes, and so she lies there unhappily on her back as the fear chokes and rattles in her chest. The ceiling spins above her, but at least it gives her something to focus her bleary-eyed gaze on, something to look at while she fights down the panic, and she catches her breath in hitching stop-start gasps.

Distantly, she hears her own voice — at least, she thinks it’s her voice, but it’s so hoarse and croaky that she barely even recognises it — crying out. She doesn’t know what she’s saying, and she’s in no condition to interpret even if she did; all she knows is that she’s talking, nonsense syllables and words that don’t exist in any of the languages she knows, and that the sound of her voice, the husk of her throat and the feel of her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth are all she has, the only contact left, the only thing grounding her in what is real.

So she lets herself talk, gibbering sounds all tripping and stumbling over each other like uncoordinated children crying out in pitchy whimpers as they fall, scrabbling for something to catch them before the ground does. She doesn’t know what she’s saying, doesn’t even know if she’s really trying to say anything at all; all she knows is that it’s her voice, her throat squeezing out those sounds that don’t mean anything and probably never will. All she knows is that she’s the one speaking… and if she can speak, that must mean she can breathe.

She’s not entirely sure how long she lies there, sprawled out in a room that doesn’t belong to her, staring up at a ceiling that she’s never seen before, making friends with the way it tilts and pitches before her eyes, feeling sick and confused as the world sways and spins all around her. She doesn’t know for sure, but she supposes it must be a few hours at least, because she has just enough left of herself to recognise the crackle of her comm badge some time later, and the sweet relief of Kira’s voice.

_“Dax?”_

“I’m here,” she whispers, and wonders if Kira can hear her. “I’m here.”

_“How are you feeling?”_

Despite herself, despite the churning madness, Dax smiles. “I’m good.”

Kira doesn’t sound convinced, but she rolls with it just the same. She’s managed to scrounge up a five-minute break, she says, and thought she’d check in. And then there’s the inevitable stream of endless questions, the _“are you all right?”_ and _“have you managed to get any sleep yet?”_ and _“do you want someone to stop by and check up on you?”_. On and on, and it’s so predictable that it almost hurts; they’re the same old familiar questions that Dax has been asked a thousand times over the last few centuries, the same stupid questions that all sick people of all species have had to sit through and answer since the dawn of time. 

When the questions stop, Dax knows it’s her turn. This is her cue, the part where she’s supposed to show how ‘good’ she really is by giving deep and insightful answers; it’s her job now reassure Kira, her protector and guardian, that she’s just fine by herself, that she’s hanging on, if not in health, but all she hears is static. Static in the comm signal, static bleeding down from the friendly ceiling, static crackling in her head. It’s hard to think through it all, so many different kinds of static coming from so many different sources and all at the same time, but Kira wants those answers, and she has no choice but to claw through the noise and find them.

She hears the words, at last, hears herself say what they both need her to, hears herself murmur — quite convincingly, all things considered — that everything’s fine, that she’s okay, that she’s not slept yet but she’s sure it’ll happen soon enough. She hears it all, the words and the static, both so close to each other now, catching the hazy slur of her voice as she mumbles all the right answers to all the wrong question, and notes the sudden sharp-edged concern in Kira’s responses as the delirium rises up in her chest again. She hears it all, but it’s so much like the static now, and it’s so hard to tell them apart, so much babble and noise, but nothing that really matters.

She says so much, all of it nonsense, and she knows what she should be saying instead — what she really needs to say — but it’s too much and too painful. She’s still Dax, still Jadzia, and she is still too damn proud to say the one word that really needs to be heard.

_Help._

*

Maybe Kira hears the word anyway, even though Dax doesn’t say it, because it’s not long after that that the doors slide open, and she hears the echo of booted feet stepping into the room.

Dax is still on the floor. If she really set her mind to it, she supposes she could probably move, but she doesn’t really see much point to it; the floor isn’t the most comfortable spot in the universe, but it doesn’t really matter because everything she does is uncomfortable right now anyway. She honestly doesn’t think it would make the least difference whether she’s sprawled out on her back on the floor or curled up like a frightened little girl in the nearest chair. Either way, her head will ache and her limbs will shake and her mind will quake. Either way, she’ll be tired and confused, helpless and hopeless, adrift on a sea of her own delirious exhaustion. Relocation won’t change any part of what she’s feeling, so why should she waste what precious little energy she has on finding somewhere socially acceptable to sit?

As it turns out, because other people will worry if she doesn’t.

“Jadzia!”

It’s Julian. He’s crouched at her side before he’s even finished the first syllable of her name, tricorder in hand and humming its diagnoses in less than the time it takes Dax to realise that he’s the one hovering over her, not Kira.

“Julian?” she whines, batting ineffectually at his hand as he checks her brow for fever. “What are you doing here?”

“Checking up on you,” he says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and sets the tricorder down on the floor. “Major Kira asked me to look in and see how you’re doing. I think she was a little worried about you.”

“Well, she had no reason to be,” Dax complains, dragging herself into a hunched half-sitting position. She wraps her arms around her legs and hugs them close to her chest, hoping to still the tremors before he can see them. “I’m fine, as you can see. I was just… uh…” She falters, though, and tries again. “I was just resting.”

“You’re on the floor,” Julian observes, stating the obvious.

“It’s so good to see that all your Starfleet training isn’t going to waste,” Dax mumbles irritably, and rests her aching head on her knees. “Kira’s right about you, you know. You’re not a very good doctor.”

“I’m going to blame that on the delirium,” Julian says airily; it’s probably somewhat more generous than Dax deserves after that remark, and she supposes she should thank him for it later. He’s far more of a professional than she would have been in the same situation. “But since I’m here anyway, I might as well make sure you really are doing all right. How do you feel? Any symptoms I should know about?”

“You’re the doctor,” she challenges. “You tell me.”

It’s only once it’s out that she realises it’s code for _“I don’t know”_ , and there’s the unfortunate truth right there. She really doesn’t know; she has no idea which so-called symptoms are which any more, and she wouldn’t even know where to begin trying to define it. Everything she’s feeling, physical and emotional and everything in between, is all seething together inside her, all blended up like the crushed ice in one of Quark’s frozen desserts, and she can’t pick the sensations apart. She couldn’t adequately describe what she’s feeling to Julian even if she wanted to, because she can’t adequately describe it to herself either. She has no idea whether the pounding in her head is due to the lack of sleep, or one of the warning signs of caffeine withdrawal, or just the emotional exhaustion that naturally comes after too much hysterical sobbing and manic laughter. She doesn’t know whether the churning in her gut is the product of too little sleep, too much caffeine, or just the symbiont in a bad mood. There are so many things happening inside her right now, most of them contradicting each other, and they’re all saying so many different things that she can’t trust herself to even try to understand any of it any more. It’s like her body is a stranger, trying to communicate in a language she doesn’t understand. The only thing she can say with any degree of certainty, is that she feels absolutely terrible.

“Jadzia…” There’s an equal measure of sympathy and frustration in Julian’s voice; it’s the voice of someone who is too tactful to say what he really means: _“I’m trying to help you, here, and you’re making it extremely difficult”_.

“What do you want from me, Julian?” she demands, and she’s sure she can feel an edge of Kira-like impatience working its way under her skin, pricking like the burn of too much sunlight. “You want me to tell you how I feel? Fine. I feel awful. Is that good enough? Is that helpful?” She may not know much right now, but she’s pretty sure she knows the answer to that ( _”well, it’s better than nothing…”_ ), and so she forces her way angrily on, detailing what little she knows as best she can. “Okay. Fine. You want it, you got it. My head hurts. I can’t close my eyes. I’m dizzy and nauseous and tired. My whole stupid body feels like it’s gone through a transporter and come back inside-out, and I can’t even breathe any more without feeling sick. I can’t talk, at least not anything that makes sense, but that doesn’t matter really because I can’t think either. Everything makes me laugh, even when it’s not funny, and anything that doesn’t just makes me cry instead.” She gulps down a stuttering breath, and draws far more comfort than she expects from the weight of Julian’s hand on her shoulder. “I feel like I’m drowning, Julian. I feel like everything is upside-down, like someone turned off the gravity and won’t put it back on. I feel like… like I’m going crazy, you know? And the only thing… the only thing that helps, even a little… the only thing… is when Major Kira is here.”

The admission comes hard; it’s the first time she’s said it out loud, and she realises that she’s ashamed.

Julian doesn’t react at all. His fingers dig into the taut muscle of her shoulder, kneading gently, and Dax supposes it’s meant to be steadying and comforting, that it’s supposed to offer the same solace that Kira’s touch does when she does this, but it doesn’t. It has the opposite effect entirely, stripping away what little comfort the contact had once possessed and leaving her feeling yet again like she’s got the weight of the world on her shoulders, like his hand has become just one more burden that she isn’t strong enough to carry on her own.

“That’s all perfectly natural,” he tells her, like that’s any consolation at all. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“What else do you want?” she cries, desperate.

“I want to help,” he answers, without missing a beat. “With all my heart, Jadzia, that is the only thing in the world I want.”

Deep inside, she knows that he’s telling the truth; he really is speaking from the heart, and she can see it painted across his face, young and fresh but scored now with lines of worry and discontent. He really, truly does want to help. Because that’s who he is; that’s Julian, and it’s it’s all he’s ever wanted to do. Not just for her, but for everyone; he’s a doctor in the purest, most innocent sense of the world, a healer and an empath and someone who defines his life by to making other people’s suffering less. He is a sweet, kind-hearted soul and he gives so much of himself to anyone who will let him, and Dax knows that it’s not his fault there’s nothing he can do for her now, knows that it’s killing him to have his hands tied almost as much as it’s killing her to go through it in the first place, but she doubts that knowing it will be any more comforting to him than it is to her.

They may both want the same thing, but Dax is far more willing than he is to accept the facts of the matter. She’s a scientist too, after all and she has all the evidence in front of her just as surely as he does. They both know it, whether they want to admit it or not: there is nothing that he or anyone else can do about this. There is no quick fix, no simple solution, no convenient hypospray he can press against her neck and watch as she calms and settles. He knows it, she knows it; hell, the whole damn station knows it. 

Withdrawal. It’s an ugly word — almost as ugly as ‘exhaustion’ — but it’s the best description she has. It’s here, and it’s got its hands around the symbiont’s throat, and it really doesn’t matter one bit that she tried to shrug it off when he warned her it would happen. She can straighten her shoulders all she wants, play the tough guy, laugh it up like she always does and make light of it, but all the light of a solar system isn’t going to hold this particular darkness at bay. It doesn’t matter that she pretended not to hear the warnings when he gave them, because they both know that she heard them just fine. She is a Starfleet officer, just like he is, and neither of them are stupid enough to think that she didn’t listen just because she didn’t want to.

She knows what she’s going through now, and so does Julian. Hell, even the damn symbiont knows it; she can feel the poor little worm writhing and wriggling inside of her. It’s far more unhappy than she’s ever known it to be, and probably more unhappy than it’s been in all of its seven lifetimes. It feels sick, too; maybe it even feels more sick than she does. For all she knows, she’s only feeling sick in the first place because the symbiont is feeling it first. And yes, Julian was right about this, and he was right to warn her that it might happen. Exhaustion is one thing — after all, what’s one more day without sleep when she’s already endured this many? — but this is far worse. This, the squirming of the symbiont in her belly coupled impossibly with her own indefinable pain, is like an excruciating slow death with no end in sight.

“For what it’s worth…” Julian offers after a moment or two, and draws his hand back, patting the tricorder at his side like a trusty pet. “All things considered, the symbiont is doing very well.”

It’s not as comforting as she expects it to be, and she doesn’t know why; it’s all she wants to hear, but his voice sounds hollow and faded and she can’t bring herself to care as much as she knows she should.

“Thank you,” she says anyway, trying to sound more earnest than she feels. “It’s… it’s not exactly easy right now to tell what it’s feeling, or what I’m feeling… or what either of us are feeling. It’s harder than it should be. I mean, we’ve always been so…” Words fail again, and she shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“You don’t have to,” Julian says kindly. “I understand the bond between host and symbiont is a difficult thing for us lesser mortals to comprehend.”

Dax smiles, relieved that he gets it, and so eloquently. “It’s usually easier than this, at least,” she sighs. “Right now it’s just so hard to make sense of anything. You know? I want to… I want to do what’s best, for the symbiont and for me… for both of us… but it’s so hard to tell who’s who and what’s what, and…”

“I understand completely,” Julian says. He doesn’t try to touch her, and Dax is thankful for that. “I know it’s difficult, Jadzia. But you have to believe me when I tell you that what you’re feeling is completely normal, and that you and the symbiont are both doing very well, taking into account the strain of what you’re going through.”

She wants to believe him, so badly, but her body is telling her so many things that don’t mesh with what he’s saying. “Are we?”

“Yes,” he assures her without hesitation. “Now that we’ve cut you off from the caffeine supply, your levels are dropping off nicely, and notwithstanding the obvious signs of exhaustion and withdrawal — which are completely to be expected under the circumstances — you’re both in surprisingly good health.” He smiles, but it’s a little too wide and she can see the darkness lurking beneath the joviality with a clarity that startles her. “You’re doing well, Jadzia. Trust me.”

“Maybe I am,” Dax mutters grimly. “But I don’t feel it.”

Julian sighs. He sits himself down, all gangly and cross-legged on the floor beside her; his hands flutter with awkward indecision, like he wants to reach out and take hers, but he restrains the impulse and lets them rest on his own knees instead.

“Jadzia,” he murmurs; she recognises that peculiar tone that creeps into his voice sometimes when he’s trying a little too hard to be Doctor Bashir but still can’t quite silence the ever-present puppy-eyed young boy that is Julian. “Would you like me to call Major Kira?”

For a second or two, Dax struggles against the urge to say _“yes”_. More than anything else she can think of in all the universe, she wants Kira here. She wants those strong, steady hands, wants her seriousness and her sobriety, wants her memories of the occupation and the way they ground them both in what really matters. She wants the way that Kira makes her pain seem so much lighter by reminding them both what real pain is, the way she weighs them both down with her broken Bajoran history. She wants way that Kira can make her feel better by talking about things that are so much more important, the way she talks about Bajoran politics and the horrors of the occupation like Dax is in any condition to understand any of it, like she has even the least idea what they’re talking about at all. She wants Kira’s arms, her body, the bony angles of her elbows and the hard lines of her shoulders and the soft rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. She wants her tears and her embrace, the brutal salt of her tears and the fire-hot rage that replaces them when she tries to talk it through. She wants it all. She wants _Kira_.

But wanting is not having, and having her is not an option right now. Dax is a Starfleet officer, a joined Trill, and a very proud woman, and if she falls apart now, if she can’t handle even this, she will never forgive herself. If she can’t survive even just a few hours on her own, then what is she? No Starfleet officer, that’s for sure, and no Trill worthy of being joined either. Most of all, she’s no good friend to a former terrorist who was trusting and stupid enough to offer her a sanctuary, and that is the burn above all the others that keeps her blazing. She promised Kira that it would all be okay, that it would all be fine in the end, that she would be back in Ops at her station in no time, scanning those damn Bajoran moons again and again and again. She _promised_ , and she knows how Kira feels about promises.

More even than that, though, there’s still some part of her — Audrid, perhaps, or maybe Lela — who feels like she needs to protect Kira from this, keep her shielded from the worst of her, the parts of her that ache and hurt and feel like drowning. Kira cried to see her in pain, and Dax would give anything to keep her from crying again, from ever crying at anything again, but at the very least from crying over her. She wants Kira here, wants to drink deep of her warmth and her strength, wants to let her presence replace the adrenalised kick of caffeine in her veins and, so much worse, the sharper kick she’s feeling now as it drains out, as bitter as raktajino but with a fiercer bite. She wants to indulge herself in Kira, to let herself be wrapped up in all the things that Kira has seen, all the fury and the fire she carries within her, to swim in the passion as it gives way bit by bit to compassion, ferocity losing its teeth as sobriety loses its footing and falls to sympathy. She wants all of that and so much more… but Kira has cried so much already, and seen so many people hurt, and Dax will not add herself to that number again.

“No,” she insists, and it’s the most lucid thing she’s managed to say all day. “Don’t call her. I can take care of myself until she finishes her shift.”

“Are you sure?” Julian asks. “Because if you’re feeling unwell but don’t want to disturb the major, I could always—”

“No.” She cuts him off, feels her voice take on a harder edge. “I’ll be fine. You said I’m doing well, right?” He nods, but he doesn’t look as certain of it now as he did a moment ago. “So I’ll be fine.”

He looks like he wants to argue, like he wants to tell her in no uncertain terms what’s best for her, or else flat-out refuse to leave her alone. If he really wanted to, they both know he could do it quite easily, and she wouldn’t be able to defend herself, or fight back at all, because he’s the doctor and right now she’s his patient.

Oh, how she loathes that word, ‘patient’. It tastes like poison, like the kind of sickness that presents with violence and hours of rebellion in every corner of the body. It feels almost worse even than the hateful storm raging within her, the headaches and the exhaustion and all the rest of it. Far worse than pain is the humiliation, the thought that she might not be able to take care of herself, that if this continues she might have no choice but to go back to the infirmary. Worse than what she’s suffering is the fact that it’s starting to define her, and that definition is not a good one. Suddenly, she’s someone weak, someone who needs care. Suddenly, she’s a _patient_. She can’t be defined that way; she can’t allow him to do that to her.

But then, perhaps Julian sees the sudden terror in her, because he backs off. Even though they both know that he could argue the point and win without even having to try, he bites down on his lip, chews thoughtfully, weighs her fate in his hands, and chooses not to say say anything more about it. He just looks at her, sorrow and sympathy alight in him, eyes still bright and wide with the exuberance and youth he brought to the station, his own unique gift to this place. He must know, must see how much the idea of helplessness frightens her, because why else would he step back from something he clearly thinks is right?

Whatever his reason, and Dax honestly doesn’t care, after a brief beat he nods and sighs his acquiescence. “All right,” he agrees softly. “If you’re really sure.”

“I’m really sure,” she says. Her voice shakes, and she wonders if he’ll notice that, and if he does whether he’ll continue to be as generous as he has been, putting it down to the exhaustion or else blaming it on the sickly symbiont. Whether he will or not, she has no intention of giving him an opening to change his mind, and she rushes on with all the certainty she can muster. “I’m sure, Julian.”

“All right,” he says. “Well, then, I suppose you’ll want me out of your hair.”

She gives him a grateful half-smile, the best that she can manage, confirming the point without having to say the words. “Thank you for stopping by, Julian,” she says, with sincerity. “It was very thoughtful of you.”

“It’s all part of the service,” he says with an exaggerated mock-bow.

And yet, as he sweeps back out with his usual charm, the haunted look on his face etches itself like a ghost on her mind.

*

It’s still some time before Kira is due to finish her shift, and Dax passes the dragging hours on her own as best she can.

To start, she drags herself up off the floor and crawls by sheer force of will back into the chair. Not because she has any delusions of it being any more comfortable, of course, but because she can’t shake from her mind the memory of Julian’s face turned white with worry as he saw her lying prone and dizzy on the floor. He was so worried, so fearful for those few seconds before he realised she was all right, and she can’t get his face out of her head. Whether or not it makes any difference to her own comfort if she’s here or there or anywhere else (a surface is a surface, and that’s all she needs), it certainly seemed to affect Julian, and that means it could just as easily affect Kira as well. The last thing Dax wants to do is make anyone worry about her, especially over something so trivial and pointless, and so with a tremendous effort she hauls her aching body back into that tiny Bajoran chair.

Honestly, it’s actually even less comfortable than the floor was; at least on the floor she could stretch out, sprawl lazily across the rough carpet and give her arms and legs a little breathing room. Jadzia’s is hardly the most compact body Dax has ever had, and at times like this she really feels the strain of her long limbs. The restlessness in her is almost unbearable, a near-constant pulse through all her joints that manifests every few seconds in twitches and tremors; it’s like she can’t keep still, even as she scarcely has enough energy to breathe, much less move. It’s like electrical impulses, sparks and surges in her nerve endings, sending her into body into sharp uncontrollable spasms, and trying to stay still in a cramped little chair really isn’t helping her to relax.

But she sits anyway, because that seems to be what’s expected of her. She sits there quietly, keeping her knees drawn up close to her chest and her arms wrapped tight around her legs, and tries not to think too much about the haunted look on Julian’s face as he left her alone. Would that look still have been there, she wonders, if he had walked in to find her here instead? Would he still have squinted and scanned and studied her like an experiment in a petri dish if he’d found her sitting awkwardly in a chair that’s too small instead of sprawled out on the spacious roughly carpeted floor? It’s silly to think that something so frivolous would make such a difference, and the very idea is enough to make her laugh, but thankfully there’s not enough hysteria left in her heaving chest to muster another explosive fit of mania. It’s for the best, really, because there’s no-one here now to talk her down when the delirium escalates into madness, when she starts losing control, when she stops breathing.

That’s a frightening thought, and it sparks a momentary flash of panic. She still feels like the air itself is bearing down on her, a predator she can’t even see, much less fight, pressing down on her lungs and cutting off her breathing. There’s still that constant pressure, that horrible sense of drowning, and she wonders for the first time now what would happen if it really happened, if she really did start to drown. There’s no water here, she knows that, but the sensation is so vivid, so visceral that she can’t break free of it. Julian is gone now, and Kira’s still on duty; who will be there to start her heart again if the pressure — real or imagined, is there a difference at this point? — gets too powerful? Who will be there to give her emergency medical treatment if really does stop breathing? Is it possible to die from lack of sleep?

The thought terrifies her, more even than the promise of worse symptoms yet to come, and it takes every ounce of strength she has left to cast the fear out of her mind. She’s not strong enough to deal with this, the irrational panic as well as the pain that’s causing it. She’s not equipped to deal with any of this, and so she doesn’t. She forces the question out of her thoughts, away from her completely, with all the rabid strength of a dying animal, because she knows that it will end her if she lets it. She will not let this thing take her, not like this; she will not allow Kira to return home to her quarters to find her gagging on her final breath. It’s as close to dogged determination as she has, and she clings to it like a life preserver, willing herself to shunt the fear and the panic aside, cast off the irrational terror like so much dead weight (the same dead weight that she’ll become if she lets herself indulge it), chalks it all up to madness, and tries to move on. Thoughts like that will kill you as surely as any phaser blast, she knows, and shudders at how close to that ledge she’s standing.

Deep inside of her, she can feel the symbiont. It’s more active than it should be, squirming and wriggling like a fish taken out of water, pressing down against her stomach and up against her lungs at the same time. It’s deeply uncomfortable, and Dax finds herself wondering with the idle curiosity of a half-dazed scientist if maybe that’s why breathing is so difficult right now. Her limbs are like weak tree branches, rocked and shaken by a particularly strong wind; it’s like her whole body has been uprooted, trembling and shuddering against an invisible assailant, unable to do anything but brace and hold itself as high as it can until the assault is over, and she wonders if that’s how the symbiont is feeling right now too. She still can’t pinpoint what it’s going through, still can’t quite separate its discomfort from her own, but she can feel it moving within her, and that in itself is unusual enough.

It feels strange, like a kind of separation. At the very least, it feels less like the symbiont is a part of her now; she’s so accustomed to thinking of it as an organ, a part of her that she’s mostly unaware of and a consciousness that has merged so seamlessly with her own it’s as if it’s just another synapse sparking thought. Now, though, it feels more like a companion; for the first time, she feels it for the creature it is, the oversized worm writhing and squirming within her, miserably and sickly. In a strange sort of way, it kind of helps a little to feel the link that way, less of a symbiosis and more of a connection between two souls suffering the same pain in different ways; it helps to keep them separate, Dax and Jadzia, and distinguishes a little easier between the symbiont’s withdrawal and the host’s exhaustion.

Distantly, she remembers that she wouldn’t feel nearly as awful as she does if the symbiont wasn’t feeling that way too. It’s the one feeling the worst of it, or so Julian seems to think, and she should be a little resentful of how thoroughly its discomfort is bleeding out into her own. She could be, and quite justifiably so, but she’s not. Because this is what she signed up for; this is being Dax, and she would not trade it for anything. Even now, as she rides out the symbiont’s suffering, and her own as well, bracing for each wave as it comes, thrown about from inside and out like an old-time sailing ship on a stormy sea, the certainty and the surety rises up within her, counteracting the nausea like the best anti-emetic in all the Federation. She wouldn’t have it any other way, even if she could, because this is what she always wanted.

Being joined means so much more than just sharing the good things, the memories and the experience, the countless lifetimes laid out in front and behind, the chance to add her name to a legacy that will endure for centuries. Jadzia may be failing quite tremendously so far at giving the symbiont much in the way of good things to remember her by, but experience is experience and memories are memories, and this experience is certainly a memorable one. More than that, though, it’s what Dax is giving her in turn; she’s been trusted for this, trusted to hold the symbiont inside her, to take everything it has to offer, and that it’s sharing this with her too is a sign that it trusts her too. She’s always doubted herself, always wondered why she was let back into the initiate program after she was washed out; was she really good enough, or was it just pity? Sitting here now, in a chair that’s too small for her long limbs, trembling with exhaustion, bearing the weight of a week without sleep and suffering ever deeper as the symbiont writhes, for the first time she thinks that maybe she is good enough after all. Maybe little Jadzia really is a worthwhile host; if the symbiont trusts her body enough to hold it even now, if Dax trusts her enough to share its pain with her, who is Jadzia to say she can’t?

The symbiont writhes again, worsening, and Jadzia can almost hear its whimpering cries. Heaven only knows, she understands how it feels; she’s done nothing but whimper herself for at least three days. She wants to help it, more than anything else in the galaxy, but what can she do when it’s inside and she’s out here?

Almost by intuition, she finds herself hunching forwards. Her arms wrap reflexively around her belly, tight and protective, and she cradles the poor thing as close and as careful as she can. There’s not much of the nurturer in Jadzia, but there’s plenty in Dax, priceless gifts left behind from Audrid and Lela, and she reaches in as deep as she can to channel what she can find of them, their kindness and compassion, their love spilling over into her own chest, driving her ribcage apart until it almost hurts, until there’s nothing left to hide the heart stripped bare underneath, the need to protect and care for a soul in pain.

She hums, then sings. Fractured snatches of ancient songs, half-forgotten rhythms she can’t quite shape, sweet-whispered lullabies that might have once meant something to some former host, snippets of ideas and imagery that flicker like burnt-out conduits to Jadzia but which somehow soothe the suffering symbiont. She can’t quite grasp the details, can’t make the sounds make sense, but she can feel the creature grow calmer, and that’s all the encouragement she needs to keep going.

It’s strange, and it makes her feel much further apart from the symbiont than she has in all the time they’ve been joined, dissociated in a way that goes against everything their connection usually is; it’s a drawback to this unnatural distance, this sense of strange companionship between them, the way that she can’t quite grasp why, can’t quite make sense of it, but can feel just the same the things that cause the symbiont to sigh and settle within her. If she couldn’t feel it as she does, if she wasn’t so aware of its physical presence, its shivering and twisting within her, maybe if she were more in tune, like she usually is, with the thoughts and memories that usually define their bond, maybe that would help, stir a shiver of Audrid’s memory or Lela’s insight, make her understand what she’s doing and where it’s coming from. But she can’t; all she has is little Jadzia and the staccato songs tripping their way across her tongue like an alien language.

Everything is all so far beyond her. She doesn’t even really feel like Dax any more; seven lifetimes’ worth of memories and experience are stuttering and catching like reels of centuries-lost film caught and choking in an archaic old movie projector, and the only thing she knows with any kind of certainty is that she is Jadzia. Dax is there inside her, a sick and scared symbiont, wriggling and whimpering a hurt all its own, but Jadzia’s broken mind belongs to her alone.

She can’t fathom it. But then, after more than a week without sleep, she’s rather given up on trying to fathom anything any more. All she can do right now is what little she can to ease the torment for them both, to dull the razor edges of her exhaustion, to still the tremors in her arms and legs as best she can without Kira here to hold her steady, and to quiet the restless symbiont as it keens out its own layers of pain, darkening hers and painting them rich with colour. She can’t make sense of it, but then what use is sense when there is suffering? What good is understanding the pain when all she really needs to know is that it hurts? Who cares what it means, where it comes from, or who started it? Who cares how or why or what for? All she cares about is making it less, gritting her teeth and enduring everything that comes, bracing against the waves of exhaustion and seasick vertigo and hoping that the salt doesn’t sting too hard in the gashes between her thoughts. That’s all she can do — hell, most of the time it seems that it’s more than she can do — so why strive for anything more? Jadzia is in pain, and so is Dax, and that’s all either of them needs to know.

And so she stops trying. She stops trying to think or talk or make sense or anything else. She stops trying to stitch together the frayed corners of consciousness, the blurred edges where Jadzia’s exhaustion ends and the symbiont’s withdrawal begins, stops trying to twist and bend the fractured rhythms into songs she might remember. She just hums, sings, whistles when her throat isn’t too dry, latches on to whatever torn up pieces of music she can and shapes them into whispers of rhythmic comfort, uses them as blankets and barriers to shield and shelter the symbiont, holds it close as it churns and hurts within her. It’s all she can do, and so it’s all she does.

She sings. On and on, endless and senseless, until her voice is almost gone, until the symbiont slows its frantic writhing, until her belly feels almost still beneath her clutching fingers, until she feels almost like a single entity again. On and on, because it’s all she has left. The symbiont suffering inside her, and the songs that make it still. On and on and on…

…and when Kira finally comes home, a thousand or a million hours later, it’s almost by instinct that she joins in.

*


	9. Chapter 9

“What’s the song?”

Kira’s voice is soft, unobtrusive, but it cuts into Dax’s thoughts like a precision weapon and she shakes her head to clear it as she glances down at her. It’s been maybe an hour or two since the major got home, and she hasn’t left Dax’s side for even a moment in all that time. She’s not had anything to eat or drink, hasn’t changed out of her uniform, hasn’t even taken off her boots; she just came in, sat herself down on the floor next to Dax’s chair without so much as a word, and settled in like this was exactly how she planned to spend her evening. They’ve been sitting together since then, just like this, and neither of them have made any attempt to break up the moment; Kira doesn’t seem to want to interrupt Dax’s reverie, and Dax can’t bring herself to pull away from the symbiont when it so clearly needs her.

This is as calm as the poor creature has been all day, and perhaps even longer than that, and she’s hesitant to draw back from it now. She knows how she herself feels when she’s sick or frightened, and she’s all too conscious of the way she’s been clinging to Kira through this, how alone she feels without her, and how much better when she’s there. She knows that it’s pathetic, that she’s no better than a child crying for its mother, no better than little Raifi wailing for Tobin every night for no reason whatsoever, but she can’t bring herself to stop. If Dax is anything like Jadzia, it feels the same way, and though she would be the first to concede she’s never been much of a parent, the least she she can do is make the effort.

Kira seems content at her side, too, at least for the most part. She hums along with Dax once she’s gotten comfortable with the notes, catching the sounds quickly and easily, and Dax is struck by a sudden mental image of her resistance movement, an angry group of Bajoran guerrillas made a family by necessity, all huddling around a dying campfire and singing songs together, blood-stirring battle songs to rival the great Klingon epics, dirges for their dead and rallying cries for freedom, whatever shape their voices need to take to get them through the night. It brings a lump to Dax’s throat, makes her stumble and lose the melody, but Kira is there to hold the tune in her place when she does.

Like everything, though, this too has to end, and after a while, Kira starts to shift. Maybe she’s hungry, or just tired after a long day, but she’s fidgeting a lot more than she was before; she doesn’t stand up just yet, but it’s obvious that she’s getting restless, and a wave of guilt settles over Dax like a shroud. Kira has spent all day at her post, and the last thing she needs when she finally comes home is being made to feel uncomfortable in what should be her sanctuary. It’s a gentle nudge, the way she starts fidgeting, and Dax isn’t yet so far gone that she doesn’t recognise it as such. So, with a conscious effort, she pulls herself back too.

“Hm?” Her voice sounds hoarse and bleary, even to her own ears. “Did you say something?”

“The song,” Kira repeats, very softly. “It’s lovely. But I don’t recognise it. Is it Trill?”

Dax’s fingers curl protectively over her belly, cradling the symbiont more closely. “I suppose so,” she replies with a shrug. “I don’t really know it. It just felt familiar. Like…” She trails off, shaking her head; the moment is lost now, and so too is what fragile grasp she’d had on it. “I don’t know. It keeps the symbiont calm, anyway.”

“Okay.” Kira smiles, covers her hand with both of her own.

“I’m sorry,” Dax mumbles, straightening. “You’ve had a long day. We should…”

Kira tightens her grip, and it keeps Dax from trying to rise. “I’m happy where I am.”

And so they stay. For a little while, anyway. Dax is far from happy herself, but this is the closest thing to peace that any part of her is able to feel right now. She’s still exhausted, still aches and feels sick and all the rest of it; she still senses the symbiont’s misery within her, too, but it’s a little steadier under her ministration and she can’t help feeling a little of that steadiness seeping into her own skin as well. It’s kind of comforting to know that she can still soothe it, even in this wretched state, and doubly comforting to have Kira at her side now too, offering the same to Jadzia in turn. It’s a different kind of symbiosis, she thinks, what Kira does to her, and it’s just as soothing to her as the nameless songs seem to be to the symbiont.

After a while, though, the world catches up with them. It’s inevitable, of course, but that doesn’t make it any less bitter when the moment finally comes. Kira groans at her side, taking back her hands so that she can stretch, long and languid, arms reaching high above her head. She’s stiff-muscled and tired, and Dax can see it in the lines deepening across her face; she knows that Kira would stay with her like this all night if she could, that she would surrender her own comfort again in a heartbeat if she thought it would ease even just a little of Dax’s pain, but one of them has to be reasonable here, and Dax’s pounding heart can’t stand the thought of letting Kira suffer on her behalf. She may have been relieved of duty, but Kira has not, and she has responsibilities to more than just a sad and tired old Trill. This is the first time in a very long day she’s had some peace and quiet for herself, and Dax will not see it squandered on her.

“You should eat something,” she suggests lightly. “And maybe get some sleep. I know you’ve probably not got much rest since…” She bites her lip, apologetic, but doesn’t say it. “Well, you know.”

Kira opens her mouth; there’s a spark in her eye that suggests she wants to to argue, but Dax douses it with a fingertip to her lips. Her whole hand is shaking, but her finger is steady enough where she holds it, and after a brief stalemate, Kira huffs a submissive sigh.

“Fine,” she growls. “But only because I’ve been craving hasperat all day.”

It’s as good an excuse as any, Dax supposes, and she rises. Or tries to, anyway, but the floor lurches beneath her feet, and she finds herself having to brace against the back of the chair. The irony of her disdain for the thing doesn’t escape her, and suddenly that uncomfortable and tiny Bajoran chair is the only thing keeping her from collapsing completely.

“Dax.” Kira is with her in a flash, easing her away from the chair, taking her weight and supporting her instead; she’s almost as slight as the chair is, but she is much stronger, and the familiarity of her arms is a comfort in itself. “All right… I’ve got you…”

“I don’t need…” Dax starts, but she knows there’s no point, and the weak protestation dies away in a violent curse.

Kira hushes her with a look, and when she manoeuvres them both towards the bedroom, she’s less guiding and more flat-out carrying. There’s an extraordinary strength in her, a tiny Bajoran not much bigger than her precious chair, supporting an old and oversized Trill, and when they finally reach the bed, it’s all Dax can do not to fall onto it face-first, and to hell with respect or dignity.

She doesn’t, though, because however far gone she may be, it’s not so far that she doesn’t feel the significance of where they are.

Since all this started, Dax has come to hate her bedroom, and her bed most of all. Lying awake all night, tossing and turning and waiting for a slumber that never comes, staring up at her ceiling, and then at the walls, pulling the covers and the pillows over her head, doing anything she can to try and quiet the tumult in her head, anything at all that might stand even the slimmest chance of getting her to sleep. Her bed, in her quarters, was where all of this madness started, and just the thought of having to lie in another — even Kira’s — should fill her with dread, a twisting in her gut where the symbiont is and a clenching in her chest where her lungs imagine what drowning feels like. Her instincts should be telling her to resist this, to fight and struggle, beg if she has to — _“not there, anywhere but there, please not there…”_ — but they don’t.

Because this isn’t her bedroom, and it isn’t her bed. It’s Kira’s, and it’s just like everything else here, all of it looking like Kira and smelling of Kira and sounding like Kira. This is is Kira’s sanctuary, Kira’s quarters, Kira’s living space. The bedroom is Kira’s too, and her bed is not nearly so frightening as Dax’s own.

And so, she doesn’t complain. She doesn’t say anything at all as Kira gently eases her down, head on the pillows and blankets pulled up tight around her shoulders. It’s fine until Kira tries to pull back, but then the panic sets in and this place that is so full of Kira becomes strange and alien again, and though she swore to herself that she would not do this Dax finds herself reaching out for her just the same, groping, blind with desperation. The emptiness is closing in around her once again, the fear and the sense of drowning, and it’s by pure hateful instinct that she clutches at Kira’s hand, a wordless plea on her lips, manifest in confused and disoriented whimpers.

“I’ll be back…” Kira assures her, understanding the sentiment if not the words.

Dax clings to her, feels the symbiont clinging inside of her too. “You promise?”

“Of course I promise,” Kira says; the words may be light but her tone is far from it. “It’s still my bed, Dax, whether you’re in it or not, and I have no intention of sleeping on the floor tonight just to spare you a few blushes. We both know you’re not that modest.”

Dax forces herself to relax, eases up the death-grip on her hand. “All right, then.”

“All right.” Kira hesitates for a moment, uncertain and uneasy, then leans in to brush a few loose strands of hair out of Dax’s eyes. “Will you be all right by yourself for a few minutes, while I get something to eat?”

“I’ll be fine,” Dax lies. “Take all the time you want.”

Kira smiles, her whole face alight with pride. “All right, then. I’ll be back soon, okay?”

She lingers for a moment longer, though, hovering over Dax’s prone form, caught between stepping away and leaning back in again. She looks conflicted, almost upset, like she’s waging another war within herself, and Dax is just about to ask if she’s all right herself when Kira shatters the moment for them both, leaning back in seemingly before she can stop herself and pressing a sharp wet kiss to Dax’s forehead. It lasts less than a second, less even than the shuddering space between their heartbeats, and then it’s over and Kira is gone, pulling her whole body back so fast that Dax’s head swims.

“Kira, I—”

“I’ll be back soon,” she says again, interrupting. “I promise.”

She is true to her word, of course, and in the momentary respite while she’s away, Dax tries to get acquainted with the bedroom ceiling, the sloping arc above her, so identical to her own and yet so different in so many subtle ways, so nuanced just like its owner. She uses this time, brief as it is, to commit to memory the way it slopes and arches, the way it tilts if she tries to close her eyes, the way it catches the patterns of light where they scatter from every angle, the way it still feels like Kira even when she’s gone.

Dax has spent a lot of time these past few days getting acquainted with ceilings — her own, and the one in the room beyond here, outside, where Kira is eating dinner in that uncomfortable little chair — and they’ve proven themselves good companions in the times when she’s alone. They don’t speak, and that’s a comfort when her head is pounding, but they don’t stay still either, at least not when she’s squinting hazily up at them, on the verge of delirium and wracked with vertigo; they’re a constant challenge to the queasy feeling in her stomach, the parts of her that are connected to the sickly swimming symbiont. The ceiling, the walls, the floor… these things are universal; they’re everywhere, even in places as sparse and undecorated as Kira’s half-empty bedroom, and Dax has spent a great deal of time hallucinating companionship in the gently curving structure, the hollow casing that holds the world inside.

She doesn’t have too much time to make friends with the ceiling here, though. She scarcely has time to get her bearings at all, in fact, because Kira is back almost before she starts to miss her. This time, though, she doesn’t just hover this time; she’s not content to simply stand over her any more, an idle soldier playing guardian to a wounded comrade. No, this time she offers all of herself, opens up her body and arms to Dax’s needs once again, just as she did before. The bed shifts, and Dax sighs at the motion, feeling the cool strength of tangling limbs and lithe sinew as Kira crawls in beside her, slinking like satin under the covers and wrapping herself around Dax’s body like a bandage.

“You’re back,” Dax whispers, and she doesn’t care that the observation is unnecessary.

“I’m back,” Kira says, and holds her tight.

It’s been an achingly long time since Dax last shared a bed with anyone (albeit more for lack of opportunity than want of trying), and it feels strange to suddenly be sharing one now.

For a start, her body is different than it was the last time, and she finds that it contradicts itself in the oddest ways. Stood strong and stoic at her post, Jadzia is almost impossibly tall. She’s by far the tallest Dax has been in probably a century — well, at least since Torias — and her body has reacted to its joining with instinctive ingenuity, Jadzia’s own inherent grace coupling seamlessly with Emony’s athletic reflexes. It’s a natural fit, and the new Dax wears it comfortably; Jadzia is no gymnast, but her natural height serves Dax well in everything she does. She carries herself with strength and dignity, seven lifetimes’ worth of experience balanced perfectly upon broad and hefty shoulders, and a galaxy’s worth of wisdom wrapped like lycra about her hips. She is old and wise — there’s not a soul who knows her that would dare to dispute that — but in this body she is young and strong as well, and she bears her youth every bit as gracefully as her age.

In Kira’s bed, however, it all changes. All of a sudden, Jadzia’s powerful and well-built body becomes impossibly small, shrinking in on itself until she feels so tiny and helpless that it becomes almost frightening. Kira’s body isn’t especially long or powerful, but somehow it manages to overwhelm Dax’s completely as she curls on her side, sick and shaking, and tucks herself with whimpering desperation into thread-thin Bajoran arms. She still feels small, almost pathetic, but in those arms she doesn’t feel so weak.

They stay there, entwined, for the rest of the night. Dax doesn’t really enjoy being stationary, at least not while she’s suffering like this; the exhaustion is difficult enough to deal with when she can take her mind off it by moving about. The ache in her head and her body is painful enough without having to stay still and dwell on it, to lie rotting and motionless in the same place for hours on end. Even without the caffeine burning adrenaline through her body, it’s still a struggle to keep still, a struggle not to fidget and twitch, and as hard as she tries, she still can’t quite keep her limbs from shaking. She wants to get up, even as she knows she probably couldn’t stand; she wants a change of scenery, a change of position, a change of anything. She just doesn’t want to be stuck here, purposeless and directionless, wide awake in this contraption that was built for sleeping.

Still, though, she stays, and she doesn’t utter so much as a word of complaint. The bed is where Kira is, and that’s good enough for Dax.

Besides, she can’t let herself forget that they’re staying here for Kira’s benefit as much as hers. Kira has her own well-being to think of, as well as Dax’s, and they both know that her task isn’t an easy one. It’s hard enough taking care of a sleep-deprived Trill at the best of times, but Kira has been trying to fit it all in while also working day-long shifts under the watchful eye of Benjamin Sisko. Dax is self-aware enough to know that Kira must need rest almost as desperately as she does right now. She wouldn’t wish what she’s going through on anyone at all, least of all someone she actually cares about, and she would throw herself through the gates of Hell before she’d let Kira willingly put herself through it too, on her account or anyone else’s. Dax is the one in need of help, they both know that, but that doesn’t mean it should come at the cost of someone else’s health, and she will not allow Kira to suffer even an iota more than she absolutely has to.

Kira needs rest, and she will get it. Dax will not deprive her of that just because she still can’t have the same luxury for herself.

They lay there for a few hours before Kira concedes to her body’s needs, and Dax is grateful in spite of herself for the effort; she knows she can’t have Kira to herself for the whole night, that it would be selfish to even think of it, but she will take as much of her as she can get, and a few hours is at least enough to ease her distress at being so still.

When Kira finally does gives herself over to sleep, rolling onto her back and trying to get comfortable, Dax can see the prospect of tomorrow’s shift already staring her in the eye, and she feels the guilt of it catch in her own throat. She offers to stay outside, to go back to the chair, uncomfortable as it is, even jokingly suggests that she could play watchdog and stand guard over Kira as she sleeps. She’d do it, too, without so much as a second thought, not that she’d be much use at this point; Kira has done so much for her, has given her so much just by letting her be here, it’s really the least that Dax can do to protect this place while she rests. But no; Kira has never been one for humour, even at the best of times, and she doesn’t appreciate the joke or the offer. She just rolls her eyes, heaves a weary sigh, and tells Dax that she’d better not hog the covers if she knows what’s good for her.

She doesn’t; in fact she lets Kira have them all. Dax is long accustomed to being the coldest person in a room, much less a bed, and it’s strange to lie here now and find that Kira is cooler than she is. Her natural Trill physiology tends to keep her body temperature lower than most other species, and she’s used to non-Trill bedmates flinching away and cursing her cold feet. But, of course, Dax is not well now, and lying next to Kira, who is healthy and tired, leaves her feeling like her skin has caught fire. She may not have the kind of fever that would worry Julian, but that doesn’t mean her temperature isn’t far higher than a Trill’s should be, and the lean coolness of Kira’s body is like sweet ice next to her.

As Kira drifts in and out of sleep, Dax lets her awareness drift with her, feeling the hours drift by underneath them both. The exhaustion is still bearing down on her, a solid weight on her lungs, but she still can’t close her eyes; she doesn’t even drowse, but her consciousness is just about hazy enough to let her tune out the worst of the aches and tremors still rocking her body. Beside her, Kira’s breathing is slow and even, and her heart pulses in rhythmic half-beats, audible where Dax has her head resting over it. It’s comforting, almost tranquil, and the soft in-and-out motion is sweetly reminiscent of open waters and sheltering skies. It allows some part of her feel good, even as the rest of her still feels so terrible, and it’s such a surprise to think that someone as edged with violence and marked by brutality as Kira is could possibly exude so much peace, even in sleep.

“Dax?”

The name cuts through the quiet, and the bed lurches beneath them as Dax flinches in surprise. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I was.” She can hear the smile in her voice. “But now I’m awake.”

“Oh.” Dax tries to come up with something a little more erudite, but what comes out little more than a gasp, halting and clumsy next to Kira’s perfect breathing. “Did I wake you?”

Kira shakes her head, and the bed shakes with her. “No, of course not.”

Dax’s mumbled response is apologetic just the same, though she can feel the calm radiating out from Kira’s cool body. She’s not entirely sure what the time is, but she supposes it’s early; Kira sounds groggy but wakeful, the content haziness of someone who has just woken comfortably from a deep and no doubt dreamless sleep, and (assuming, of course, that she’s being truthful about how she woke) Dax is pleased about that. Kira certainly deserves a good night’s rest, and it’s a relief that strikes almost physically to know that Dax’s unwitting invasion of her personal space hasn’t kept that from her.

After a moment or two, Kira clears her throat; the rhythm of her breathing is still calm and untainted, but she sounds a little more subdued now, almost like she’s nervous. “How are… I mean…” She exhales, awkward but determined, and Dax raises her head. “How’s the symbiont doing?”

It’s an odd question, but a touching one. Kira couldn’t possibly understand how the joining process works, how things like this affect host and symbiont together and separately, how it feels for either or both of them. By her own admission, she doesn’t really understand anything about Trills at all, and Dax knows that she would be the first to admit she has no desire to. Her own species is complicated enough without wasting her time trying to figure out the inner workings of somebody else’s, no matter who or why; it’s a valid argument, and one that Dax respects. And yet, it seems that she has been paying enough attention to ask the question, to look at Dax with her dark eyes blinking in the darker room, and ask about the unseen creature nestled inside of her, like their earlier shared moment exposed so much more than the hitching notes of long-forgotten songs.

“It’s…” And now Dax is the one trailing off, breathing uncomfortably, unsure of what to say. “To tell you the truth, I don’t really know. Julian tells me it’s doing well… but it doesn’t…” She sighs, clutching at the sheet. “I don’t know. I just know that it feels miserable.”

“You can tell that?” Kira asks, and Dax can tell that her curiosity is sincere.

“It’s hard to explain,” she admits, shaking her head. “I don’t really know how to… I mean, I’m not sure I’m interpreting it properly. My head hurts so much, and I can’t… it’s so hard, you know? I can’t even tell what I’m feeling, much less what the symbiont is. But I think… I mean, it’s…”

“I understand,” Kira murmurs, cutting her off gently; Dax isn’t wholly convinced that she really does understand at all, but she appreciates the gesture, the subtle offer to change the subject if that’s what Dax needs them to do.

“It’s okay,” she says, declining. “It’s just… it’s just so hard…”

“I know it is,” Kira replies, as if she could possibly grasp something as complex as this. “And I’m…” Dax can tell she wants to say _“sorry”_ , but knows that it won’t be taken kindly. “Look, Da— Jadzia. I’m not Doctor Bashir. I’m not going to wave a tricorder around and pretend I know what I’m talking about. I don’t know the first thing about Trills, or about symbionts, or anything else going on inside of you, and I’m not going to pretend I do.” The honesty is refreshing after two days of Julian, and Dax smiles. “But I have been through my fair share of sleep deprivation… and, yes, sometimes for days at a time. I know exactly how unpleasant it can be. And, no, I might not have any fancy medical expertise about symbionts and caffeine addiction, but I’ve seen enough people deal with other kinds of withdrawal, and I…” In lieu of any space between them to shrug, she leans in until their foreheads are touching. “I’ve spent a lot of time with you over the last few days, Jadzia, and I think I can say with complete and total confidence that you _are_ doing well.”

“Really?” Dax asks in a tiny voice.

Kira’s lips are cool and confident against her cheek. “Really.”

It means a whole lot more coming from her now than it did coming from Julian all those hours ago. Dax knows that that’s a ridiculous thing to feel; Julian has all the resources of the infirmary at his disposal, to say nothing of his own medical ingenuity. If she was looking for a qualified opinion, one that was actually worth something, she would look to him without even a second thought. Whatever ineptitude he might still have on a personal level, professionally there’s no denying that he knows his stuff. And yet somehow, when he told her just yesterday the exact same thing that Kira is telling her now, the words echoed off the walls of her mind, fizzling and filtering out like so much pointless static, like nothing she needed to hear at all.

From Kira, though, all of a sudden, it matters. She hears the words, really hears them, and recoils as they slam into her chest. She feels them carve a path through her veins, cooling the fever in her blood and the throbbing her head, and she can’t help but smile as they soothe her soul and quiet the exhaustion, easing her troubled thoughts from the inside out. Kira has said it herself, more than once: she doesn’t have the first idea what she’s talking about. And yet, Dax would sooner hear a thousand of her hollow, unsupported platitudes than even one professional diagnosis from dear sweet Doctor Bashir.

“Thank you,” she says, but it’s not close to enough.

Kira’s skin is still the coolest thing in the bed, even fired as she is by what they’re talking about, and Dax finds it almost impossibly refreshing when it’s pressed like this against her own. She doesn’t need to see herself reflected to know that she’s hot, sticky and damp all over with sweat; no doubt she makes for a somewhat unpleasant sleeping companion, but Kira hasn’t shied away from her even for a moment. She hasn’t complained, either, hasn’t suggested that Dax go away and cool off with a sonic shower, hasn’t said a word about it. She must have noticed — there’s no way she couldn’t have — but she doesn’t say anything.

If anything, it seems that she actually makes a concentrated effort to lean even further in as Dax gets worse, wrapping herself even more tightly around her body the hotter she gets, like she knows how desperately Dax needs the contact, how wonderful the cool surface of her skin feels against her own, like she understands despite her self-confessed ignorance exactly how unpleasant it is for a Trill to be so hot.

“Jadzia,” she murmurs again.

It sounds almost like an invitation, but Dax has no idea what for. She only knows that Kira’s voice is as sweet and cool as her skin, that every part of her is like a balm, and that if she’s going to drown anyway, she could drown here and now and be completely at peace. If this is going take her, let it take her now, and let her die happy.

“Kira…” she echoes, once and then a second time, but she doesn’t know what she wants to say any more than Kira seems to.

Unprompted, Kira’s hands slide down from where they’re circling her shoulders. She cinches the fabric of Dax’s shirt where it collects at her hips, gripping tightly enough that the loose-fitting material crumples in her fists. It’s an old thing, the shirt, far too big but very comfortable, nothing at all like the practical tightness of her Starfleet uniform, and the fabric offers little resistance as Kira’s hands glide up and under it. She caresses, smoothing her palms across the twisted planes of Dax’s back in strong and powerful strokes, massaging the rock-tight muscle with her thin fingers until Dax’s body has no choice but to relax a little, that same sweet coolness seeping in through every inch of her until she can feel it right down to her bones.

Kira must know about Trills and heat, she thinks thickly; if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be touching her like this, wouldn’t be lying so close, wouldn’t be holding her so tight, wouldn’t be pressing her palms and her fingers to all the parts of Dax that are so unbearably warm, so impossibly hot. If she didn’t know — somehow, some way, through some miracle — she wouldn’t be doing any of this.

For a long moment, they just stay like that, still and silent, the only movement the careful drumming of Kira’s fingertips along the ridges of Dax’s spine, the only sound the sweet-cool rhythm of her breath. It feels like it’s enough, like if it carries on for long enough maybe Dax will be able to close her eyes and not panic, like maybe the world around her will draw in some of this blissful, blessed stillness and follow its example. It’s such a beautiful thought, fragile and delicate and perfect, even just the idea that she might yet be able to do something so simple and not hurt from it. It’s so incredible, so dazzling, and she doesn’t even realise that it’s moved her to tears until she raises her head once more and sees that Kira’s shirt has turned dark and damp.

“Not again,” she hears herself choke, hushed and desperate, trying so hard to laugh it off even as the tears start to flow all over again.

“Shh…” Kira whispers, and it’s so tender that Dax actually does.

In that moment, the world bends between them. Not enough to shatter the beauty of it, but just enough that when Kira moves, it’s not jarring or unexpected. Her body shifts, just a little but enough that her hand shifts with her, sliding around from Dax’s back and fumbling hopefully for purchase elsewhere. There’s an inquisitiveness in the way she does it, an intense kind of deliberation, and it’s by pure instinct that Dax realises exactly what she wants.

She can feel the symbiont inside of her, rocking against her abdomen like a restless embryo, and she understands in a breathless heartbeat that Kira wants to feel it too. Neither of them need to say a word, she just knows; with perfect and intangible clarity, she simply understands. Kira, who will not admit to feeling anything for anyone, who will not accept the burden of emotion even for a moment, who even now is struggling just with the thought of caring for this woman in her bed, this woman she has held and supported through all of this, who has been conditioned her whole life to hold back from forging any emotional attachment to anyone at all… Kira, who in spite of all that, in spite of herself, suddenly wants to connect with her on the most intimate and fundamental level.

What’s happened between them is inescapable now; they’ve both come too far now to even try and pretend it’s not there. Dax has always felt too much and too easily; it’s nothing new to her, but to Kira it is alien and frightening; she does care, and she does feel, and she can’t deny it any more. And it seems that maybe there’s a part of her that doesn’t want to, even if she could, because that’s the part that’s moving her hand now, the part that’s scrabbling across the sweat-slick surface of Jadzia’s skin, her hip and her side and her waist, the part that is seeking, exploring, searching…

She’s already lost to Jadzia. Now, she wants to connect with Dax.

Dax’s hands are still trembling and unsteady, effectively useless, but they cover Kira’s well enough, and she guides them both with shuddery precision to her front, to the symbiont swell of her belly, to the paling scar where they cut her open and made her into something new. She remembers the moment (if not the sensation itself) with perfect clarity; seven times over, she remembers it, each new host feeling it differently, bringing a new experience to the same old process. But it’s Jadzia who remembers it now, Jadzia’s experiences right there at the front for once, Jadzia’s heart filled to bursting as she recalls those first fleeting shimmers of new birth, those first fragile memories reshaping themselves inside of her.

Kira’s fingers are trembling too as they press against the scar, and Dax understands why. Kira is remembering, too, but not in a good way.

Dax knows that Kira has seen a great many scars in her lifetime — probably many more than she herself has seen in all seven of hers — and she doubts that any of them carry any good memories at all. The scars that Kira knows are the scars of war: violence, brutality, torture, abuse. She has seen countless scars, all of them bearing the brand of Cardassia, the mark of the occupation, blood and fire driven savagely into the skin. The scars that Kira has seen come from wounds that run far deeper than the flesh that burned or broke.

Kira has never seen the kind of scar that Dax has, the kind of scar that’s been forged in creation instead of destruction, taken by choice instead of by force. She has never seen a scar that came from something positive, a beautiful moment captured on the skin like art on canvas, and that is a tragedy that breaks Dax’s heart. On occupied Bajor, a scar is loss, defeat and destruction etched into the skin in a permanent blazing effigy, and the only good to be found it is the fact that it’s not yet a grave. To Kira, every scar is a nightmare, a reminder of terrible things and a promise of worse things yet to come, and it’s little wonder that the light in her eyes is darkening now to sick horror.

Dax tries to backtrack, to salvage what little remains of the peace between them. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t…”

“Don’t apologise,” Kira says quickly, and Dax understands what she’s really saying. _“My wounds are not yours”_.

So she doesn’t apologise. She doesn’t take it back, but she doesn’t press it further either. She just carries on, keeps her fingers locked around Kira’s and holds them in place, over the scar and the symbiont beneath, the mark of birth and the life within. She can’t take away the scars that Kira knows, can’t undo the terrible things those pale lines mean to her, can’t take back the trauma they commemorate. She can’t replace Kira’s scar-tainted memories, but she might be able to help shape a few new ones in their stead… and maybe, if they’re both lucky, these ones won’t hurt so much.

“I can’t feel anything,” Kira whispers, breathless and uneasy in the dark, and her fingers twist fearfully against Dax’s.

That’s no surprise. Dax usually can’t feel anything either. The symbiont is inside of her, yes, but it’s a part of her as well, and her physical awareness of it is usually pretty limited; it’s enough, most of the time, just to know that it’s there, to feel the spark and snap of synapses as their minds and memories connect. It’s complicated, and even if she were in a sane state of mind it would be impossible to describe to someone who hasn’t lived it. But then, that doesn’t really matter because right now it’s a different sensation entirely. Right now, she does feel it, the symbiont alive within her, and it’s as real and physical as she herself. She can feel its writhing now where she normally would not, little flutters against the inside of her belly, every bit as tangible as the flexing of Kira’s fingers against the outside. She feels it, the squirming and the suffering, the pain and everything else, their unique bond thrown into a strange new light by the dual effects of exhaustion and withdrawal, all their usual connections phasing in and out of sync until she doesn’t know _what_ either of them are any more, only _that_ they both are.

And that’s what Kira wants to feel, too. Not the symbiosis, just the symbiont.

“It’s not…” Dax tries to explain, to put some tiny piece of it into words, but her breath hitches and she loses her train of thought before it even starts. “It’s not really… at its best… right now.” It’s an apology, plain and simple. “But then, neither am I. So…”

Kira doesn’t care if she’s at her best or not. Of course she doesn’t. She just takes back her hand, trailing her fingertips in quiet drumbeats across Dax’s abdomen and away from the scar. Not too far, just far enough that she doesn’t have to feel that pale sinew any more. Dax lets her; she doesn’t often like people touching her belly like that, always so protective of the life within, the life it’s her duty to keep safe, but with Kira she finds she doesn’t mind. Let her fingertips go where her instincts take them; let her do what she wants. Dax is as safe with Kira as it is with Jadzia.

“Does it hurt?” Kira asks; her voice is low and hushed, almost reverent.

“It’s hard to explain.” Dax says again.

She tries to close her eyes again, just for a moment, in the hope that it will help to order her thoughts. She wants to say something useful, something that might make sense to someone like Kira, but of course the vertigo starts up again before she can even draw a breath, that awful sense of suffocating, of the world bearing down on her like so much water, like she’s going to drown. It’s instant and terrible, impossible to ignore, and she lashes out before she can stop herself; her eyes snap open again and her shoulders heave as she fights panic, momentarily dazed and completely terrified. Kira doesn’t panic, though, and she’s definitely not terrified. She’s as calm as ever, and she doesn’t back away just because Dax is panicking; she simply trails her fingertips across Dax’s abdomen in tickling little footsteps, simple patterns drummed out in the rhythm of last night’s song.

“I’m here,” she says simply, and presses her lips tenderly against Dax’s temples, lingering coolness exactly where she needs it.

Dax balls her hands into fists, tight and protective across her belly, and struggles to keep her voice steady. “I’m sorry. It’s not usually… I mean…” She swallows heavily. “We’re not usually so… out of sync. I…”

With an open palm, Kira presses down. The sudden pressure makes Jadzia feel sick; she groans, but before she has a chance to react further the unpleasant sensation is offset by a strange satisfaction that both is and isn’t hers, a depth of relief flooding her senses, and there’s just enough awareness in her to realise that it’s the symbiont, reacting to the contact with blissful contentment; Dax, it seems, is just as appreciative as Jadzia is of Kira’s touch.

“Oh,” she manages, and she’s not sure which of them she’s talking to.

Kira’s eyes flash in the dark, studying, and her lips feather once again across Dax’s temple. “Is there anything I can do?”

“No.” The word comes as a reflex, and she catches herself, tries to think it over. “I mean… maybe. No. I don’t know…” It’s not funny, but she feels the soft puff of breath as Kira chuckles. The tiredness is reasserting its control over her now, drowning out the symbiont’s queasy restlessness and leaving her with nothing but bone-deep exhaustion, and she exhales in a deep, melancholy sigh. “I guess not.”

As useless as it is, the uncertainty seems to resonate with Kira, at least a little bit. She doesn’t say anything more, but she nods as though she’s heard some kind of secret message. Then, inexplicably and without warning, she inches her way closer; Dax had thought there was no space left between them at all, but Kira closes what little there is as though it were a vast chasm, moving in until there’s nothing there at all, not even breath.

Her chin rests lightly on the top of Dax’s head in this new position, and Dax takes a moment to appreciate the irony of that. She would never manage that if they were both standing, of course, but she supposes that’s one of the perks to being horizontal; everything is inverted here, backwards, easily twisted into whatever shape makes the most sense in a given moment, and lying here in this bed Dax suddenly looks as small as she feels. Kira is the driving force here; she’s the power and the presence, the only thing holding Dax together, and that’s reflected in the way she’s suddenly so much bigger, the way it’s suddenly so easy for her to wrap up all of Dax in all of her. Here, it’s on display, everything about them both, so much clearer than it is when they’re standing; it’s there in the way that Kira is holding her, cradling and enveloping her, surrounding her completely in spite of their different bodies. It’s the opposite of how they usually are, but here and now it feels right.

One arm slides underneath Dax where she lies, coming to rest at the small of her back and pulling her in even more tightly; the other stays where it is, pushing down on her stomach, the pressure light but strong, a reminder not just to the body in her bed, but to the body within that body too, that she is here.

“It’s lucky, you know,” she muses after a long silence, and Dax doesn’t understand what she’s talking about until she takes a deep breath and clarifies. “The symbiont, I mean. I know you think that you’re the lucky one, that you owe it something for letting you be its host, that it’s some kind of gift and you’re honoured just to receive it…” It’s all true, and Kira must know far more than she’s let on if she can put it into words so easily and eloquently. “But it’s lucky too, Jadzia. It’s lucky that it got someone who will fight for it like you do, someone who’ll stay up for a week straight when it has too much caffeine, and go through the withdrawal when it gets cut off, and still somehow manage to not go completely crazy.” Dax’s breath catches in her throat, but she can’t bring herself to interrupt. “It’s lucky, Jadzia. It’s really, really lucky to have you.”

Speechless, Dax can only shake her head. She wants to deny it all, to tell Kira that she doesn’t understand, that she can’t possibly understand, that she’s not Trill and she shouldn’t pretend to be. She wants to yell and shout, scream and kick her out of her own bed if that’s what it takes to make her see how wrong she is. She wants to make Kira see, really and truly see, that Jadzia alone is worthless, that without Dax she’s just a hollow shell, a shy little girl who has nothing and is nothing, that the foolish young initiate who was washed out of the training programme didn’t deserve the gift she got in the end, that Jadzia could never be who she is without Torias and Emony and Curzon and all the rest of them howling and roaring and clamouring for supremacy inside her, their memories and their lives shaping her own, shaping _her_ into something worthwhile.

Kira doesn’t understand any of that, and she never will. For all the things she does understand, all the countless terrible things she knows so well, she knows nothing about this. How can she, when she’s just one person? How could she possibly understand what it is to be made more by someone else’s life, by so many lives? How could she understand when she is everything that she is — an incredible, astonishing woman, a fierce and fearsome fighter, a survivor of war and occupation, a terrorist and a hero, wild and reckless and dangerous, spiritual and faithful beyond words, so many different things and so much more — and yet still just one person? How could Kira, of all people, comprehend the fact that Jadzia alone is less than a hundredth of that?

The shame pours into her, filling every orifice and making it impossible to breathe. She really is drowning now, but it’s not in water or gas or dry ice; now it’s just her own self-loathing that has her by the throat. Because there’s the truth of it, the horrible humiliating truth: Jadzia Dax is nothing next to Kira Nerys.

Even with all her past lives, all their memories and all their experiences filling up her heart and her soul, even with three and a half centuries’ worth of wisdom crammed inside her head, even with everything that she is and was and will be again… even with all of that and more, she is still so much less than Kira. Even as she is now, joined, a centuries-old symbiont and a fresh new host, more than three centuries and less than three decades all at once, still with all her growth and evolution, still she catches herself looking at this Bajoran survivor, this woman barely born, and seeing age and experience the likes of which she can’t even fathom, much less aspire to. Even with all that she is, all that she’s done and been and lived, everything that all of Dax’s lives have created in her, still she looks at Kira Nerys and is struck dumb with awe.

Kira can’t understand the link between Jadzia and Dax, because she is only one person. How can anyone who is so much in one soul understand what it is to be so little in seven?

It’s a long time before Dax finds her voice again, and for once it’s not just because she’s too tired to think and too nauseous to try. She’s breathless, dazed, completely overwhelmed in a way that would be far too easy to blame on the exhaustion and withdrawal and everything else that’s humming and crackling through her veins right now. She can’t see straight, but she still can’t close her eyes either, and all of a sudden she finds that it doesn’t matter what she does anyway, because either way all she can see is Kira. She swallows hard, choking not on delirium or hysteria this time but on raw emotion, and the tears she’s suddenly fighting back aren’t spawned by the manic madness of not enough sleep or the sickness of too much withdrawal. For the first time in days, they come from herself.

“You’re wrong,” she manages at last. “I really am the lucky one.”

Kira leans in, ghosts her lips across Dax’s forehead again, cooling once more where the heat is still rising. There’s a quiet tenderness in her eyes when she draws back, deep and damp in the dark, and Dax could gladly drown in the passion and the power she sees there, countless galaxies of life in a soul so young.

“That doesn’t mean the symbiont isn’t lucky too,” Kira says, though she must know that Dax isn’t talking about that any more.

Dax sighs, suddenly very sad. “I don’t think it feels very lucky at the moment.”

“I don’t imagine you feel very lucky right now, either,” Kira replies, as smart and quick as a whip. “But you still claim you are.”

Dax tries to laugh, and the sound trips and stumbles all through her body, shaking the bed. “I don’t know much of anything any more,” she admits, and Kira pulls her in even closer. “I don’t even know which part of me is which any more. I’m just… I’m just so…”

“…tired,” Kira finishes, with a smile that’s as sorrowful as it is sympathetic. “I know you are.”

And she does. That’s the best and the worst part, and dwelling on it brings all those pricking promising tears just a little closer to the surface. It’s only by sheer force of will that Dax keeps them at bay, and it’s only because she needs to that she finds the strength to try. For days upon days, she’s done nothing but cry, hysterical sobbing silenced only by hysterical laughter, and she will not let it happen again. Not here, and not now. Not in Kira’s arms, and definitely not in her bed.

“Maybe you’re both lucky,” Kira muses, almost to herself. Her lips are still pressed to the sweat-drenched skin at Dax’s brow, and her voice takes on a sudden note of heartfelt intimacy; it’s like she’s trying to breathe the words right into her blood, so that Jadzia and Dax can hear and share them together. “Maybe we all are.”

“I’m lucky you’re here too,” Dax whispers; she doesn’t realise until she’s said it just how powerfully she believes it, and the lump in her throat rises higher, the tears suddenly so much harder to swallow down. “Kira… I…”

“Don’t,” Kira snaps sharply, and Dax can’t tell whether it’s because she doesn’t want to hear it or because she doesn’t need to. “Don’t complicate this, Dax. I’m just doing my duty. That’s—”

“Your duty begins and ends with Bajor,” Dax reminds her, interrupting with a feverish frenzy. “We both know that. This…” She gestures to the bed, to them. “This has nothing whatsoever to do with duty, and there’s not a soul on board this station who would believe for a second that it does!” She’s panting, gasping, but she refuses to stop. “We both know that nobody would think any less of you if you just walked away and left me in Julian’s care. Hell, they’d expect you to do that! He’s the doctor, Kira, not you… and you don’t owe it to me, or anyone else, to do any of the things you’ve done for me these last few days. It’s not part of your duty to let me share your quarters, and it’s sure as hell not part of your duty to let me share your bed.” Kira recoils beside her, though whether it’s because she’s offended or struck by the brittle truth of it, Dax can’t tell. “You’re not doing this because you have to, or because you feel it’s part of your duty. You’re doing this because… because…”

But she can’t finish, because she doesn’t know. She has no reason, no explanation, no words to voice what either of them are feeling. She has nothing left in her at all, except the urgency of Kira’s arms around her, the quiet strength and the sweet-cool contact, the pressure of an open palm against her belly and the pressure of tender lips against her forehead. She has only this, the drying salt-stains on Kira’s clothes and the long-dried tracks of tears on her own face, the memory of firm fingertips at the small of her back, her hip, her hand. She has only this, a moment that’s already lasted a week, a sentiment that has spiralled out of control, feeling that’s expanded beyond even the infinite well of exhaustion and pain. She has only this, the way that her heart stills, if only for a beat or two, when Kira holds her or whispers her name, the breathless shiver that passes through them both when it happens. She has only this. Nothing more, nothing less. _This_.

And maybe that’s enough. Maybe she doesn’t need a reason. Let Kira pretend this is duty, if that’s what it takes to make it all right. Let her pretend anything she wants if it will make her feel better about feeling anything. If she’s not ready to accept the concept of emotion, of feeling, of caring… if she’s not ready to concede to the idea that she might just be something a little more than a hardened survivor of a war now over, then that’s her prerogative.

It’s Kira’s business, what she wants to think, not Dax’s; what does it mean to Dax, what Kira tells herself to shape all of this into something acceptable? What does she care if Kira wants to pretend that she doesn’t care at all? What does it matter to her if Kira hides like a child behind what she knows, what is safe and familiar, the rough edges and the hard lines of a war-torn world freshly liberated? What does Dax care about any of it, when the only thing that she herself can comprehend is the way the symbiont stills and settles, becoming calm and content under the pressure Kira’s open palm, the way that her own heart slows in time with the calloused fingertips skittering rhythms across her spine? What does any of it matter at all?

“I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do,” Kira insists, but there’s a tremor in her voice that says maybe she’ll be the one to cry first this time. “And because I don’t trust Bashir.”

That’s definitely not true, and neither of them are stupid enough to believe it, but Dax won’t destroy Kira’s delusions if she wants to cling to them. What matters is that they’re both here. Who cares why?

Kira’s lips break away from Dax’s skin, but only for a moment. Dax tries to catch her breath, but it stalls in her throat, ragged and desperate. She gasps, panting, and then Kira’s lips are there again, tender and sweet just like before, but this time at the base of her throat, perfect pressure at the point where Dax’s pulse hammers out an impossible staccato, all softness and salt in the crevice between her neck and her shoulder, and if she couldn’t breathe before she sure as hell can’t breathe now.

But then, as she reels against the spinning of the room and the swerve of the ceiling, bracing against the tilted pitch of the bed as it sways and rocks beneath them, she can’t help wondering why she’d want to breathe anyway. Why would she want to waste her time on things like breath? Why would she even need to, when Kira is breathing hard enough for them both?

“Kira…” she chokes out, shuddering.

“Don’t.”

But Dax can no more turn away from this now than Kira could have turned away from her to begin with. They’re both here now, both caught up in the momentum of something so much bigger than either of them, this moment and this emotion and this indefinable thing that they have become. They’re both drowning, and it’s so much better than when Dax closes her eyes; it’s the right kind of drowning, the kind that will leave her at peace because Kira is there beside her and the symbiont is inside her, and it’s them, all three of them, together. They’re all drowning now, and there’s nothing that any one of them could do to make it stop.

Besides, even if she did hold back from this, it wouldn’t make any difference in the end; keeping the words and the thoughts and the feelings locked away, hiding them inside where nobody can see them… it won't keep them away, and making them silent won’t change their truth. Pretending something doesn’t exist won’t snuff it out any more than willing someone to be well would make them so.

They’re here, and _here_ is a wave that roars so much louder and crashes so much harder than the exhaustion or the withdrawal, than the headaches or the nausea or the hysteria or any of the rest of it. It’s a wave, the kind of wave that drowns, and it’s bearing down over her and over Kira, towering and looming over them both, stinging salt sharp in invisible wounds, crackling electrolytes across their skin, and of course she can’t stop now. She couldn’t stop if the station was burning down to nothing all around them, if the wormhole swelled and swallowed them all, if the universe collapsed in on itself (and in their line of work, it’s a distinct possibility, which is all the more reason not to squander moments like this). There is no power in the universe that could make her stop now, least of all a halting word spilled like water against the pulse in her neck.

“Don’t,” Kira breathes again.

It’s a last-ditch effort, futile and utterly pointless, but Dax understands why she has to try. She’s a fighter, and that’s all she will ever be, and she has to fight this just as she had to fight the Cardassians, just as she’s always had to fight everything that’s ever happened to her. It’s like the scar all over again, and Dax doesn’t need to make out the lines on Kira’s face right now to know that the turmoil is the same, that she can’t fathom something good in this, just as she couldn’t fathom anything good in those pale lines. Bad things, terrible things are the only things she’s ever known, and it’s been so much a reflex in her for so long that they’ve become the only things she can see, the potential for pain and the promise of worse things lurking underneath anything with even a shred of hope in it. It’s been the only thing she’s known for so long, of course she can’t turn it off now. Of course she will fight this too, of course she will struggle and kick and say _“don’t”_. Of course she will, because she’s Kira, and Dax wouldn’t have her any other way.

This time, though, it’s Kira who silences herself. Maybe she senses that Dax won’t try to silence her, that she won’t resist her need to resist, won’t fight her need to fight. Maybe she understands, in the moment she tries to struggle against it, that this isn’t something she wants to defeat after all. Maybe she just realises this fight is a hopeless one. Dax doesn’t know, and she probably never will, but either way, the end result is the same, and it leaves them both as stunned and breathless as each other.

Another _“don’t”_ dies half-formed on Kira’s lips, and then, without warning, she rears upwards. She moves with her whole body, spine bent back, eyes dark and dangerous, teeth sharp and gleaming in the dim half-light, her whole body alight with fire and flame and all those things she’s tried so hard to deny, all the distance she’s fought so fiercely to keep. The protective shimmer of self-defence flickers and dissolves, the forcefield she’s been holding up around herself fizzling and fading, gone in a flash like it’s been hit dead centre by a photon torpedo, leaving her open and exposed and unable to hide from anything any more.

She moves like a soldier, in this as in everything else, all graceful precision and planned assault, but even her violence is tempered with tenderness now, jagged edges sanded until they’re soft, the snarl turning to molasses on her tongue even as she bears down with her teeth, possessive and protective in near-equal measure, biting at Dax’s clavicle, her throat, her jaw, her chin, and finally… 

…finally, her lips.

And still she whispers that word. Still, it’s all Dax can hear. _“Don’t.”_ Over and over and over, the intensity of it climbing ever higher, burning ever brighter, even as its meaning flares out and dies countless light-years beneath them, the power of it ever more potent with every breath, every whisper, every kiss, feral and open-mouthed and hungry, again and again and again, until Dax feels bruised and raw, as much from the word as from the assault, opened up and torn asunder, the stinging salt of sweat and tears hot and wet in long-abandoned places.

She drinks the word down, salty and strong just like Kira, just like the taste of her mouth, her lips, her tongue, and she can’t even count all the reasons why this shouldn’t be happening — she’s too exhausted to think and the symbiont is too sick to think for her, and Kira… well, Kira’s not one for thinking even at the best of times — but she still can’t stop. No, _they_ can’t stop, either of them. Not now, not again, not ever.

It’s so easy, so very easy to drown in this, to forget everything except the passion and the violence and the feeling. For Dax, it’s life and blood; it’s who she is and who she’s always been — Jadzia, Curzon, Torias, all of them. It’s as much a part of her as any one of them, as much inside her as the symbiont, and she can no more ignore it now than she ever could before. Feeling, raw and brutal, a violence that is good, scars that are beautiful, rough edges that make celestial shapes. For Kira, though, it’s something completely different, a force that frightens and exhilarates her at the same time, and Dax knows that because she can feel what she’s feeling, all the anger and fear and desire, all that and and a thousand other things all clamouring to be heard, clamouring to be seen and known and felt in the press of her lips and the scrape of her teeth, in the drowning taste of salt and tears, the pounding crashing tidal wave of this and them and _this_.

Kira is kissing her like they’re both going to war, like it’s the end of everything, like they’re still on Bajor and it’s the middle of the occupation, like any second now either one of them could be hauled away by Cardassians, like they’ll be pulled apart forever if they waste even a second. She’s kissing her like each kiss is the moment between life and death, like they can tear the memories out of her, or else tear the exhausted pain out of Dax, like they can carve away every bad thing that ever touched either one of them, like they can undo everything that’s ever happened, every wrong that Kira remembers as she looks at the exhaustion and the suffering on Dax’s face, all the hurt that she has been through before and all the hurt that Dax is going through now. She’s kissing her like those kisses are the only thing she knows, the only thing she has, like they’re the only possible answer to a question she can’t remember how to ask.

At last, she pulls away, panting in the spaces between their heartbeats, and the look on her face will haunt Dax for at least her next three lifetimes.

“Jadzia,” she breathes.

It’s a plea and a promise and the death-gasp of a choked-down sob and a thousand other things all at the same time, and what can Dax say to that? What can she say to stem the tide of desperation, to make the struggle less, to ground Kira in what is good instead of what was bad? What can she say at all, except the only word that either of them can hear?

_“Don’t.”_

*


	10. Chapter 10

Of course, they don’t talk about it.

Kira, Dax knows, isn’t really one for talking things through, even at the best of times. She’s too wild, too angry, too prone to tying her own tongue in knots with her righteous indignation and her long-suffering resentment; even when she means well, discourse comes to her with great difficulty. Every conversation is a conflict for her, and a minefield for everyone else; she’s always on her guard, and that makes it difficult to find any common ground, even on those rare occasions when everyone wants the same thing. Dax could agree with every word she says, and Kira would still see it as a challenge; anything that Dax tries to say now, Kira would find a way to twist into a criticism or an assault, and that’s the last thing she wants.

Unfortunately, though, for once, Dax actually kind of does want to talk about it. Some of it, at least. It’s odd, because that part has never really been much of a necessity with her — no doubt some amalgamation of Curzon’s careless womanising and Torias’s _’life’s too short’_ cheerfulness — and she supposes it’s not really needed here any more than it’s ever been before. If neither she nor Kira ever mentioned this again, she knows there wouldn’t be any fallout, no blowback or repercussions, not even an eye-roll or a head-shake when the dust has settled on them both. It’s as simple as it could possibly be: a moment came and went, fleeting and beautiful, rough around the edges and brutal in the middle but precious and fragile in the places that matter, and that’s all there is to it, for both of them.

Dax is old enough by now to know that there are more important things than giving things names and definitions, and Kira is still too young to think for a moment that those she might one day want something with a name or a definition. Neither of them have any real need to discuss what’s happened here, and there’s certainly no burning desire to validate or make it more ‘real’; neither of them are stupid enough to think that those things can be accomplished by by slapping a label on it, even they had a mind to do so. They’re not so hopeless or so romantic as that, and they don’t need anything more than what they have.

And yet, somewhere deep in Jadzia’s chest, a little too high to blame on Dax, she remembers that needing is not the same as wanting, and there are still so many needless words that her heart wants to say.

She aches. Her head and eyes pulse and pound from the exhaustion, the broken-down backbeat of sleeplessness still tripping like a drug through her veins; it will take a hell of a lot more than a few endorphins to chase that pain away, she knows, but that’s nothing that wasn’t true an hour ago. The only thing that’s changed now is that there’s a pleasant ache in her now too, underlying the exhaustion and the headaches; it’s a dull satisfied throbbing, as familiar as it is blissful, a kind of contentment that just happens to taste the same as pain, radiating out from her belly (too low for the symbiont this time) and purring where the other pain hums.

Kira is not a considerate lover. But then, of course, Dax never expected her to be. Kira makes love like she kisses, and she kisses like she fights: with all of her, and all the violence she has still pulsing through her veins like a second heartbeat. She burns and brands and bleeds, the marks of war crosshatched all over her skin, and every move she makes is a weapon carving those same marks into her partner’s. She might want to believe that she’s over the occupation, that she and Bajor are already recovering from the damage, that just because the Cardassians are gone, so too is everything they did, but Dax knows better. Those scars won’t fade any sooner than Jadzia’s will where Dax went in; their meanings may be different, but they’ll both last forever.

Honestly, she thinks that Kira probably knows all that. The things that Kira has seen will stay with her for the rest of her life at least, and that the things she’s done will stay longer still. The truth is that Kira will never be free of the occupation, no matter how long it’s over. She will never be free from the ghosts that haunt her thoughts, the scars that mark her body in the hidden places, the memories that burn like flames behind her eyes; she’ll never be free from the nightmares that rise to the surface at the worst moments, the pain she remembers feeling and enduring and, worst of all, seeing. All the things she saw and did and lived through, all the reasons it hurts her so much to see good people hurting now, all the reasons why Dax’s pain was so personal. She’ll never be free of them, not ever. And maybe she shouldn’t be.

That’s why, when she sinks her teeth into Dax’s shoulder with a little too much force, tearing flesh and raising welts, or rakes her nails down Dax’s back in scored battle-lines that will bleed long after they’re done here, Dax doesn’t utter a word of complaint. She can’t take any of Kira’s ghosts away, can’t exorcise the demons, any more than Kira could make her sleep by praying to the Prophets or bringing her tea. She can’t do anything about that, or about this; neither of them can. All Dax can do is take what Kira needs to give. She can bite her lip when it cuts too deep, fist the sheets when the tears threaten, tighten her muscles until they scream in lieu of her voice. She can let the violence wash over her, let Kira breathe out her trauma into her mouth, pour it out over her body, leave scars that aren’t born of battle, take control in a way she couldn’t when it mattered. She can do whatever Kira needs to feel alive, to feel complete, to feel like she’s here and home, and what difference does it make if the marks left behind are painful and raw? Dax is already feeling enough hurt for seven lifetimes; what difference is a little more?

And maybe that’s why she defers to Kira now, even after it’s done. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t try to talk, why she simply bows her head and sighs with resurfacing weariness when Kira shakes her head and extricates herself from the messy tangle of damp and cooling sheets. When she rises, crossing the room with a stretch and a sigh, Dax stays where she is. She’s not sure she could move anyway, even if she wanted to, but she has no inclination to try even so. She doesn’t speak and she doesn’t move; she just watches from the bed, body aching and vision hazy, as Kira yawns and dresses, and she’s acutely conscious of the irony here, that she who can’t sleep is the one lying in a cold bed as her worn-out lover stretches out the kinks in her neck and orders a sweet-sounding drink from the replicator.

“Can I get you anything?” Kira asks; the question is curt and clipped, and makes it pretty clear that, if she has any say in the matter, this will be all the talking they’re going to do.

“Raktajino,” Dax says automatically, then laughs and shakes her head as she remembers why she’s here in the first place. “I mean… no. Nothing for me, thank you.”

Kira quirks a brow, but doesn’t even crack a smile. It’s like she thinks Dax said it on purpose, like she’s forgotten how devastating this whole ordeal has been, like she’s not taking any of this seriously enough. “Really, Lieutenant?” she quips, acerbic. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough caffeine for one lifetime?”

“Dax has,” she replies, wincing as she tries to shrug. “Jadzia, on the other hand…”

“…is apparently not as smart as the slug,” Kira finishes tartly.

It’s a fair point, and Dax allows herself a chuckle. “We all have our vices,” she says. “I could tell you a thing or two about Curzon’s that would—”

Kira cuts her off with a withering glare. “Do you really want to bring Curzon into this now?” she demands.

Dax rolls her eyes. “I guess not. Sorry.”

She’s not the least bit sorry, of course, and she has no doubt that Kira will see that, but at least she’s made a feint at apology, and that has to be worth something. For all her centuries of experience, she’s not really much better at this sort of thing than Kira herself is. Well, not right now, anyway, what with all her senses and her charisma dulled into uselessness by sleep deprivation and withdrawal and whatever else. Now that it’s almost over, she finds herself suddenly lacking the energy to say much of anything. It’s hard enough to speak at all, much less find the right words to charm a former terrorist with leanings towards post-traumatic stress. Not that she’s looking to charm Kira, exactly, but it would be nice to have enough of herself left to offer something more than a bad joke and a former host’s illicit memories.

“How are you feeling?” Kira asks after a short silence.

The question is phrased vaguely enough that, if she really wanted, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for Dax to ‘accidentally’ misinterpret it as an invitation, to read between the lines and see an opening for them to talk about what just happened, to do what she still kind of secretly wants to do and discuss this thing. She could play that card easily enough, and she’d probably get away with it too, but she doesn’t. She knows Kira well enough by now to know that the question means ‘in general’, not ‘about us’, and so she defers to that with all the chivalry of a nostalgic gentleman holding open a door for a lady.

“Tired,” she admits, but the word alone is not nearly close enough to what she really feels. “So tired I want to cry.”

Kira’s eyebrows go up at that, like it’s a klaxon signalling red alert, and Dax supposes she can’t blame her for that; given all the hysterical sobbing she’s had to deal with over the last few days, it’s more than a little understandable. “Really?” she asks, uneasy and guarded.

“Don’t worry,” Dax amends with a sigh. “I won’t, I swear. Not this time, anyway. It’s just…”

She trails off, shaking her head, and Kira offers a sympathetic — if somewhat relieved — nod. “Maybe you should go and see Doctor Bashir again. You must be far enough out of the danger zone for him give you some more of that sedative or something to speed the process along.” She looks contemplative, forehead crinkling beautifully just above the ridges of her nose, then turns sharply away, so that Dax can’t see her face at all. “I’m not due at Ops for another couple of hours or so. I can go with you if the infirmary still makes you uncomfortable.”

“I’m not _uncomfortable_ ,” Dax argues; she’s sulky, but there’s a grin on her face as she says it. “I just don’t want to waste Julian’s time.”

“Of course,” Kira replies smartly, letting the tone of her voice exude all the cynicism for her, so she doesn’t have to. “Because his time is so precious.”

“It is!” Dax argues weakly.

“Mhm.” Kira nods, though it’s pretty obvious she’s not buying it. “You’re just looking out for the good doctor’s best interests.”

“Exactly!” Dax forces a grin, then swallows hard, struck in a way that doesn’t make sense given the casualness of the moment.

Her every instinct is telling her to shut up now, to leave the conversation where it is, just let it dissipate into the atmosphere, all the bad parts neatly dissolved by the air filters (assuming, of course, that Major Kira’s are working better than her own) while the good is left to breathe in and out in peace, to just leave it all as it stands and move on. Kira clearly wants to get past all the post-sex awkwardness as quickly and unobtrusively as possible, to go in this new direction that has nothing to do with anything but the reasons why Dax is here in the first place. No doubt she wants to cling to those reasons like the stubborn fool she is, use them to remind herself of why she allowed all of this to happen, and honestly, Dax is happy to let her do that if it’s what she wants.

It’s not like they even have anything to discuss, really. There’s no heavy weight bearing down on either of them and demanding that they ‘deal with things’; they’re not Klingons, after all, and they’re sure as hell not obligated to get married or anything just because they acknowledged a mutual need to enjoy themselves for an hour or two. Honestly, Dax doesn’t even know why she’s letting herself dwell on it at all. It’s not like her; well, it’s not like Curzon or Torias, anyway, and Jadzia hasn’t really lived long enough to know how she would normally react to things like that. She’s happy to defer to them, just as she is to Kira, but there’s still one thing she really does want to say, and Kira isn’t making it any easier with all of this unnecessary hand-waving and head-ducking. It should all be so simple, so straightforward, but nothing feels that way to Dax right now at all.

“Kira,” she starts, swallowing.

Kira groans, so sure that she knows what’s coming. “Dax,” she huffs. “We really don’t need to talk about this.”

“I know,” Dax agrees readily. “And I don’t really want to either. You know I’m not that sort of person.” Kira turns back, and there’s that quirked eyebrow again, bemused but entertained just the same. “All right, fine. You don’t know the first thing about me, and you have no idea whether I’m that sort of person or not. So I guess you’ll just have to trust me when I tell you I’m not.” Kira’s lips twitch, but she doesn’t quite let herself smile just yet. Dax relaxes a little, spotting the potential, and presses on. “Look. I don’t want a proposal from you, Kira. We’re not star-crossed lovers or anything, and this isn’t a Klingon opera. We just… you just made me feel good for a while. That’s all. And I’d like to think I made you feel good too.”

Kira gives a noncommittal grunt. “I suppose.”

Dax laughs, then quickly sobers. “But… look, I still want… I still want to thank you. Even if there’s nothing more to it than that, you still… you still made me feel good. For the first time since this whole mess started, and just when I was starting to think I’d never feel good again, you reminded me that I will… that I can.” She lets her eyes slide closed for a moment, and smiles when the vertigo doesn’t hit. “I know you don’t think that you’re a good person, Kira. I know you don’t think you’re capable of being kind or patient or compassionate. I know you think you’re what the occupation made you, and I understand why you feel that way.”

There’s a low growl in Kira’s throat, and her fists are balled at her sides. “Dax…”

But Dax won’t back down now. “Shut up and listen. I know you don’t want to admit it, but we both know you’re still there. The occupation’s over, but you’re still living it every day. You can still hear the sounds of war, the screams and the cries and the pain of it, all bouncing around in your head like phaser blasts. I know it and you know it. And maybe I can’t do anything about that, and maybe I shouldn’t, even if I could. I know I can’t empty out those terrible things for you, and I know I can’t make you believe that you’re a good person… but I can tell you that you’ve done a good thing.” Kira goes rigid; Dax takes a deep breath and plunges on. “I really needed help, Kira. Not just tonight, but all week long. I have been so screwed up, so lost and confused and so… so sick inside. I needed help, so badly, and that’s exactly what you’ve given me.” She takes a deep breath, then says it again, fierce and passionate, with all the power that someone like Kira needs to accept the truth of it. “You… you’ve done so much for me. I know you don’t see it in yourself, Kira, but you’ve been so good to me. You have been kind and patient and compassionate, and you… you have done so much good. So much.”

Kira won’t even look at her now. “Dax.”

“It’s true,” Dax insists, still ignoring her. “Even Julian couldn’t help, but you did. Over and over and over, you did. Every time. Every single…” She breaks off, momentarily overwhelmed. “You helped. You _helped_ , Kira.”

She closes her eyes again, testing for the vertigo and giving Kira a moment or two of relative privacy. When she opens them again, Kira is staring at her, and her eyes are so wide Dax could swear she could fit the whole universe in them and still have room to spare. There’s a light there now, a glimmer of something that even Dax with her years of experience can’t put a name to, a dazzling ghost of something bright and phantasmal, something precious beyond measure but still undefined. She’s a fresh-cut diamond, a gem with its edges still sharp and caked in bedrock, but open and uncovered, glinting and new in fresh sunlight, and Dax hasn’t seen anything quite so beautiful in… well, at least in Jadzia’s lifetime, and probably much, much longer than that.

“Thank you,” Kira whispers, and Dax wonders how long it’s been since she said that to anyone.

It warms her heart to think that she might have given such an broken, angry young woman as Kira something worth saying ‘thank you’ for. It strikes her almost blind to think that, if only for a brief sweat-soaked moment, she might have given this war-torn soldier, this veteran of the occupation a reason to think she could yet be defined as something more than what that world made her, that she might yet become something kind and good. Kira is not a terrorist here, and she is not a victim. She is Bajoran, yes, but that’s an identity she has chosen for herself, a badge she has pinned to her soul and to her body, a claim she has made in freedom with pride and dignity. It still defines her, but it’s no longer the only thing that does.

They’re not at war any more, and even if they were, this place — this Cardassian-built space station that she refuses to call ‘home’ — is a sanctuary for those like Kira, young bodies made old by a life under occupation. Kira has a lot to be thankful for here, but Dax knows that gratitude comes hard to someone who has lived all her life twisted and torn apart by resentment and hatred. It’s a much larger step than Kira would admit that she’s allowed herself even just to think of saying ‘thank you’ to anyone for anything; that she’s actually said the words is beyond remarkable.

For Dax, responding to it is the easy part. She just smiles again and shrugs, slow and easy and casual, making light of it just as Kira wanted, dismissing the gratitude as easily as she dismissed the intimacy, lessening its impact so that Kira can swallow it down.

“No problem,” she says simply, and lets her eyes spark with all the emotion that Kira is so afraid of, lets her see that she understands, lets it shine bright enough that neither of them have to say anything more.

Kira lets the moment hang on the air between them for a beat or two; perhaps she’s simply savouring it, or maybe she’s taking the time to commit it to memory. How it feels to be safe, how it feels to be worth something, how it feels to be cared for and cared about, how it feels to care in return and not watch the world burn down because of it… to give because she wants to, and receive because she deserves it, to be thankful for something more than just the clothes on her back and the breath in her lungs, to have something more to offer than a stolen packet of rations or a smuggled phaser rifle. Gratitude is an unaffordable luxury to someone like Kira, a rare gift that comes at far too high a cost, and she needs some time to wrap her mind around the idea that here it might come for free.

Dax doesn’t interrupt her as she takes it all in. She just sits there on the bed, trailing her fingertips along the lines of sweat and blood that Kira left behind on her body, the bruises that will go dark in a few hours and the welts that will scab in a few days. She doesn’t try to cover herself up, doesn’t try to do anything at all that might intrude on Kira’s thoughts. She just watches, wordlessly awestruck, as the colours flicker and dance across Kira’s face, taking in the way that she shines seemingly without even realising it, the way the moment plays across her like music nobody else can hear. She is so beautiful, so much depth and passion hidden under such thin skin, and in her haze of exhausted dizziness Dax is blown away by how completely Kira’s emotions right now are feeding her own, how much she feels too just by watching Kira feel. It’s a deep reverence that strikes her then, the realisation that she alone of everyone in the galaxy was chosen to bear witness to such a rare and precious thing.

It’s worth a few days’ sleepless suffering for a gift like that, she thinks, and deep inside of her the symbiont sings its agreement.

“Now,” Kira announces at long last, tightening her shoulders to mark the moment’s end. “If you’re done procrastinating, Lieutenant, I believe we have a date with Doctor Bashir.”

*

Julian is nauseatingly pleased to see them.

He’s so happy, in fact, that he doesn’t even bother with his precious tricorder at first, just takes a fleeting look at Dax’s face and breaks into a wide grin. It’s the kind of expression that would probably be condescending on anyone else, but in Julian it just brings out his natural boyish enthusiasm; he looks incredibly young when he grins at her like that, not like a doctor at all. It’s quite criminally endearing, actually, and Dax finds herself smiling back in spite of herself.

“You seem much better this morning,” he observes, checking for fever the old-fashioned way — with the back of his hand and the still-drying sweat on her brow — and nodding in satisfaction at the result. “Did you manage to get some sleep at last?”

Dax shakes her head. There’s no point in playing bravado when the tricorder will call her out anyway once he starts using it again. “No sleep yet,” she admits softly, then cuts a glance at Kira, who coughs awkwardly and straightens her uniform. “Major Kira has just been taking good care of me.”

Julian blinks, adorably puzzled, like there’s a part of him that can tell there’s a private joke in what he’s hearing, but the rest of him is too sweetly naive to figure it out. “I… see,” he murmurs. “Well, then, Major, I suggest you keep up the good work.”

The expression on Kira’s face is nothing short of devilish. “Oh, believe me, Doctor,” she replies smoothly, “I intend to.”

Dax chokes at that, blushing furiously, and Julian turns to study her; the friendly exuberance is gone now, and he looks worried again. “Are you all right?” he asks. “Is it the symbiont, or—”

“It’s nothing,” Dax insists, waving his hands away. “I just… had something in my throat, that’s all.” He doesn’t look convinced. “I’m fine, Julian, I swear. It’s nothing a glass of water won’t cure.”

Kira clears her throat. “She’s probably right, Doctor. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this little adventure, it’s that our Lieutenant Dax can be quite insatiable.” Dax lets out a low whimper, and Kira shoots her a predatory grin that passes over Julian’s head. “…when she’s thirsty.”

Julian, being characteristically preoccupied by his doctoring and thus oblivious, falls back on his trusty tricorder. The tension dissipates around her, but Dax finds herself more uneasy than ever as the familiar humming whine cuts through the air. She’s come to hate that sound, almost more than she hates the infirmary itself, so sterile and precise, everything so clean and sharp, so _medical_. She may be a scientist, may appreciate as well as anyone the merits of a well-kept lab, but this is different. The infirmary has the steel metallic taste of doctors and disease, promises of careful incisions and hypos filled with cocktails of drugs she can’t even name, and the shrill whine of the tricorder is its heartbeat, a sinister soundtrack for this place. She shudders, and Kira reaches reflexively for her hand.

“Dax?”

“I’m fine,” she insists again, then shoots Julian a pointed look. “Aren’t I, Julian? You’re the one with the tricorder.” If he will insist on using the damn thing, she thinks, she’s sure as hell going to get something positive out of it. “I’m doing much better now, aren’t I?”

“Actually, you are,” he says, and Dax doesn’t miss the look of relief that crosses his face; he really was worried about her. “The caffeine’s almost entirely out of your system at last, and the symbiont seems to be doing much better than it was yesterday.” Dax feels her shoulders slump, reassured, though she probably could have figured that out for herself; she hasn’t felt its unhappy wriggling for hours. “Another day or so, and you should start feeling more like yourself again.” He smiles, visibly proud of her progress, and Dax is surprised by how much it means to her that he thinks she’s accomplished it all on her own. “In fact, keep up this level of progress, and we might even have you cleared for active duty again before the week’s out.”

“Really?” Dax asks, surprised.

“Really. You’ll be kicking computer terminals and complaining about Bajor’s moons in no time.” His expression sobers, though the light in his eyes is as bright as ever. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. You can worry about all of that once you’ve had a good night’s sleep, or three.”

“Can you give her anything to help with that?” Kira asks, before Dax can grab the opportunity to thank him and run the hell away.

Julian looks thoughtful, though Dax suspects she knows what’s coming. “We could try the sedatives again,” he suggests after a beat; he’s talking to Dax, but he’s looking at Kira, and they all know that she’ll be the one to have the final say on this. “Without all that caffeine in your system to counteract them, they should be much more effective now. I can’t make any promises, obviously, but they should knock you out for a couple of hours at least.”

Dax’s breath catches violently in her throat; she hadn’t really allowed herself to indulge the idea, not wanting to face the prospect of of disappointment, but now the words are out there — sleep! real sleep, at last! — it feels like a dream. “Really?” she manages again.

“Really.” Sympathetically joyful, Julian rests a supportive hand on her shoulder. “I know,” he goes on, very quietly. “It’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it?”

“You have no idea,” Dax whispers, suddenly tearful in the best possible way.

Kira gives her hand a gentle squeeze. “No, he doesn’t,” she says. Julian huffs, but Kira only has eyes for Dax. “But I do.”

She does. She really, really does, and not just because she’s been the one who’s had to deal with the worst of this. Yes, she’s been the one to hold Dax’s hand when she suffers, to stroke her back when she gives in to the delirium, to lay her hands across her belly when the symbiont writhes in its own kind of pain; yes, she’s been there the whole time, keeping her company through the hysteria and keeping her cool during the fever-touched sleeplessness. Yes, she’s done all of that, and yes, it grants her a certain priority over Julian and his useless tricorder, but that’s only one piece of it.

When Kira says she understands, she’s talking about so much more than the unimaginable relief as Dax finally stares down the barrel of sleep. She understands everything, not just how much Dax has suffered, but _how_ she has suffered. She knows what suffering is, how it feels to watch her sanity slipping and sliding out of reach, how it feels to go days at a time without sleep, how it feels to be caught in the throes of feverish delirium, how it feels to be driven mad by something that can’t be fought. True, she may not know how it feels to have a symbiont inside her, but she sure as hell knows how it feels to suffer through the writhing screams of someone else’s pain. She understands everything that Dax has gone through, and that’s exactly why she has been the one to hold her through it. Not because it’s her duty, and certainly not because Dax found her comforting. No, nothing like that. She’s been there because she _does_ understand, because she really does get it, because… because she, more than anyone else on the station, knows exactly how long this has been coming.

And maybe that’s why, when Dax takes a shaky breath and nods her acceptance, welcoming Julian and his sedatives, it feels like a victory for both of them.

*

Once the drug hits her system, everything becomes a blur.

She vaguely remembers the look on Julian’s face as he readies the hypo, the way his eyes cloud over with uncertainty in the moment or two before he presses it to her neck, like they always do right before he does something (anything at all, even something as simple as this), like he’s still not quite sure of his place here. He’s a confident, competent doctor, and they both know it, but he is still very young and incredibly human, and Dax knows that it will probably be a good few years before he learns not to second-guess himself over every little thing. Even something as routine and trivial as administering a sedative to a patient who needs help getting to sleep is like a trial by fire for him, fresh out of the Academy, and it seems that he’s got his heart set on living or dying by the idea that if there’s even the tiniest margin for something going wrong, then it will do so spectacularly.

It’s not exactly comforting, Dax thinks, but it’s sweet that he still cares enough about what he does to feel that way; she’s seen enough doctors lose their bright-eyed idealism to the ravages of arrogance or hard-earned experience, and it will be a shame to see that happen to Julian. It will, of course, she has no doubt about that; in fact, in a place like this, she suspects it won’t be very long at all before life has robbed him completely of all that beautiful young boy’s compassion. It’s tragic, of course, but she has seen it happen far too many times to think for a second that maybe this one will be different. Julian is young, but youth fades, and Dax knows it will hurt far more than just him when it happens. So, for now, she gladly accepts the unease that settles in her gut as she watches the sudden tension in his jaw and the clouds in his eyes; it’s a small price to pay to keep that beautiful little fool alive for a little longer.

Still, though, the unease is there just the same, and she is grateful beyond words when Kira huffs her impatience at Julian’s reticence, and her fingers clench protectively around Dax’s.

There’s no question over the sedative’s effectiveness this time; it kicks in almost immediately, and a wave of dizziness washes over Dax with such suddenness that she pitches forward almost before her fuzzy mind can piece together what’s happening to it. Naturally, of course, Kira is there to catch her before she hits the ground, and Julian is quick to support her from the other side as well. There’s no harm done, and as she sways and lurches like a drunk between them, there’s a goofy, serene smile on her face.

She’s hazily aware of Julian’s suggestion that maybe she ought to stay in the infirmary instead of venturing all the way back to Kira’s quarters; there are beds to spare, after all, he says eagerly, and he’d be more than happy to keep an eye on her while she finally gets some of that much-needed rest.

Kira, of course, won’t hear of it; there’s no doubt in any of their minds that it would be far easier for her to let Julian take up the burden now, and it’s clearer still that she’s really not looking forward to the torturous walk back to her quarters with a drugged-up and sleep-deprived Trill, and yet, for all that, they also know perfectly well that she won’t back out of this now.

Dax is grateful for that as well; she doesn’t want to spend a minute more than necessary in this unpleasant place, with its smell of medicine and its gleaming instruments, and as she tries to shake her head, she finds herself hallucinating a blurry-edged vision of Kira’s quarters: the pristine Bajoran shrine, the smoky scent of incense and faith, the stark walls stripped bare of sentiment, the rough carpet and the uncomfortable little chair, the warm bed and the friendly curve of the ceiling. It’s a place of promise (or at least it is right now), and it fills her with peace.

“I want to go home,” she hears herself slur, and she can tell by the way Kira tenses beside her that she knows exactly what ‘home’ she mean. Still, though, there’s just enough fortitude left in her dim consciousness to elucidate, if only for Julian’s sake. “Hers, I mean. Major… uh…” She swallows, throat burning. “Major Kira’s home.”

“Quarters,” Kira corrects, in a voice that’s as keen as a blade and twice as sharp. “You want to go to my _quarters_.” Dax can’t really focus her eyes just now, but she can tell just the same that Kira is glaring. “We’ve been through this, Dax. It’s not ‘home’.”

“Feels like it…” Dax mumbles; her mouth is impossibly dry, so she licks her lips and tries again. “It feels like home to me.”

She hears Kira mutter something, and she supposes it must have been a threat of some kind because suddenly Julian’s stepping between them, mumbling an awkward apology on Dax’s behalf. “Don’t worry,” he says, like Dax is a child who can’t speak for herself. “It’s just the sedative talking.” 

Kira exhales a furious growl. “It had better be.”

Dax’s world goes hazy for a bit, then, and the next thing she knows, she’s swaying unsteadily in a turbolift, faintly aware of Kira’s deceptively strong arms wrapped around her waist, holding her steady and keeping her as close to upright as either of them is capable of.

The turbolift is unimaginably loud, much louder than she’s ever heard it before, and the thrumning of machinery pulses like a second heartbeat all around her. It feels almost organic, humanoid, each harmonic hum setting off explosions in her chest. Dimly, she finds herself wondering if she’s feeling the symbiont’s thoughts right now instead of her own, because she can feel the buzz and crackle of electricity like it’s in her veins, radiating out in static waves from a place deep within her, whistling and sizzling; it feels wonderful and terrible at the same time, and for a moment she thinks she might be sick, but the world is so beautiful that she just can’t bring herself to ruin it now.

“Dax,” Kira grumbles at her side. “Could you please try to hold still?”

“Thought I was staying still,” Dax mumbles, inexplicably amused by the disgust in her tone. “Aren’t I?”

Kira groans. Dax is pretty sure that if she wasn’t using both of her arms to keep her upright, she’d probably be pinching the bridge of her nose with one hand and punching the wall with the other. “No,” she says flatly. “You are absolutely _not_ staying still.”

Dax hangs her head, though she’s too dizzily cheerful to really commit to repentance. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” Kira accuses with a huff.

Dax pouts. She moves to rest her head against Kira’s shoulder, all wide-eyed innocence and well-orchestrated apologies. In her mind’s eye, it’s a fool-proof plan, but in her hazy state she naturally miscalculates the distance between them by about an inch or maybe a foot, and ends up smacking her cranium against the wall instead.

“…ouch.”

Kira gives up the effort of keeping her upright, and throws up her hands in exasperation. “Oh, for the love of the Prophets!”

Dax doesn’t remember very much at all after that. She’s vaguely conscious of her knees jarring painfully as she slumps to the floor, and the occasional teeth-gritted complaint from Kira once they start moving again, but not much else until a few minutes or an hour or a lifetime later, when she finds herself on her back once more.

It doesn’t take much in the way of cognitive process to figure out that they’ve made it back, that Kira has managed to get them both home in one piece, and she lets her head tilt back and her aching limbs bask in the sensation. She’s on the bed, she guesses, surrounded by those same wonderfully cool sheets, staring up at the same ceiling she made friends with last night, and she takes a moment or two to just watch as it pitches and sways and blurs like a zero-gravity holosimulation. It’s almost pleasant this time, though, and there’s almost none of the churning nausea or weighted water; she doesn’t feel like she’s going to drown or die, not now. Now, the sensation is almost calming, like watching plasma flow through a well-ordered conduit, like the hum and throb of a warp core in perfect working order, like…

…like the rhythmic thrum of a sensor scanning Bajor’s second moon.

The thought comes out of nowhere, but it makes her smile, makes her think back to the beginning, when the sleeplessness had only just taken purchase, back when she was almost rational, when the only thing she had to worry about was a little short-tempered impatience. She remembers the endlessness, scan after scan and moon after moon, the pure pointlessness of it all, the way she’d just wanted it to be over so she could stop wasting her precious time, the way she’d tried to make light of it. More than anything, though, she remembers the way that Kira’s nose crinkled with disgust because the Prophets forbid Dax not take their glorious moons seriously, the way it meant so much to her and Dax was so dumb and so blind that she couldn’t see it. She cries out at the memory, wild with abandon, and buries her face in the pillow.

Distantly, she’s aware of motion and contact, of Kira’s body sliding into the bed next to her, impossible strength packed so tight into so slight a form, and she curls up against her side without even thinking.

“Jadzia.”

“I’ll do it better next time,” she hears herself mumbling. What else can she say?

Kira is confused; she doesn’t understand, and Dax laughs crazily at the absurdity of it. Kira, who took it all so seriously back then can’t even understand what she’s talking about now.

“What do you mean?” Her fingertips are light and lithe, trailing long strokes through the loosened tendrils of Dax’s hair, and it feels so good that she almost forgets what she was thinking in the first place. “What will you do better?”

Dax rolls over, feels the whole room rolling with her. The skin at Kira’s neck yields readily where she presses her nose against it; she smells of sweat and courage, and Dax breathes in deep enough to block out everything else. “Bajor’s moons,” she explains drowsily. “I’ll scan them better next time. They’re so important to you, and I didn’t… I was so tired, Kira. I didn’t even think. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t think. I’m sorry I was so tired. I’m sorry didn’t take them seriously. I’m sorry. And next time, I’ll do it better. I promise I will. I promise—”

“Dax.” Kira sounds like she’s not sure whether to laugh or cry, like her heart is out on her sleeve but even she isn’t quite certain what colour it’s supposed to be.

“I do,” Dax urges. “I know how you feel about promises, Kira, but I do. I promise.” It’s about all she’s able to grasp right now, and Kira must realise that because she doesn’t interrupt her just yet. “I promise I’ll take Bajor’s moons seriously next time. I promise I will. Because… because they’re important to you. They’re important to you, and that’s reason enough. So I promise.”

Kira inhales sharply next to her; Dax is so close she can feel the rattle of breath in her chest, the sticking pressure of thin ribs tight against her own.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says at last, very quietly. “Bajor’s moons aren’t going anywhere. You can take them seriously next time.” Dax feels an odd shift in her, and realises belatedly that she’s trying to smile. “And don’t think I won’t hold you to that promise, Lieutenant, because—”

“Are you?” Dax blurts out, all of a sudden and out of nowhere.

The blurry-edged silhouette of Kira blinks, inexplicably puzzled and a little worried. “Am I what?” she asks.

“Going anywhere,” Dax says.

Her eyes are rolling back, and it feels so good to feel sleep so close at last; even the room isn’t rocking any more, just swaying ever so slightly, in time with the rhythm of Kira’s heartbeat. It feels wonderful, tempting, but she struggles to keep her focus for just a moment or two longer, just until she can get to the end of this, just long enough to look at Kira and make her understand that she is not alone, that it’s not a betrayal to Bajor if she dares to think of somewhere else as home too.

“Dax, what are you—”

“Are you going anywhere?” Dax asks again, more urgently now.

Kira still doesn’t understand, though, and the frown deepens on her hazy features. “I can stay if you want,” she says, a little guarded. “Do you need me here?”

“No…” Dax tries to sit up, but her limbs feel impossibly heavy, like they’re weighted down with gold-pressed latinum. “That’s not what I… you don’t…” She whines, and buries herself in Kira’s arms. “I think… I think…”

Kira sighs. “You know what I think?” she says. “I think you’re very tired. And I think you should lie back now and let the sedative do its job.”

“You do?”

“I do.” Kira’s lips brush against her own, but only for a second. “I’ll stay with you if you want.”

“You’ll stay?”

“I’ll stay.”

Dax braces herself for the question she needs to ask, the only one that matters. “You promise?”

The question resonates with them both, and she feels Kira flinch beside her. Her muscles go iron-tight, and though it’s clear that she wants to pull back, she holds her ground. The tension is inescapable, though, and all of a sudden Dax wants nothing more than to take it back, to suck the words back in and apologise for saying anything at all. She didn’t mean to put Kira on the spot, didn’t mean to ask her to make promises at all, much less ones that she might not be able to keep, didn’t mean to do or say or think anything, didn’t mean to ruin this. She didn’t mean to, and she definitely didn’t want to.

All she wants is for Kira to stay. No, that’s not true either. She wants Kira to _want_ to stay. She wants her to look around at this place — her quarters or the station, either or both — and see somewhere she might want to live, a place that might with a little time and patience become ‘home’.

And of course Kira knows that. She knows exactly what Dax is asking, knows exactly what she wants from her. She knows that this isn’t about her staying in bed, or keeping her company, or whatever might have happened between them last night. It’s not about any of those things, and it would be an insult to them both if she thought for a second that it was about anything so superficial. Because whatever they are, however deep this feeling between them flows, whatever it will or won’t or might become, it has nothing to do with this.

This isn’t about them; it’s about Kira. It’s about what she needs and what she doesn’t want, about the world that has changed so much, fallen to pieces all around her and then raised itself up from its own ashes, about a people brought to the edge of destruction suddenly blinking in new sunlight, reborn and unsure of their place. It’s about Kira, a terrorist who has only ever known violence, who now needs to carve out a new identity for herself in this new existence she doesn’t recognise. It’s about a confused, angry young woman who doesn’t feel like she belongs anywhere and not-so-secretly doesn’t want to belong anywhere either. It’s about someone with a heart so big that even after everything it has been through it still breaks when it sees a good person hurting.

It’s about the way she can’t fight herself any more, the way that she can’t deny her own goodness no matter how hard she tries or how desperately she struggles; it’s about the compassion, the kindness and the generosity in her, the beauty that Dax can see so clearly — even through a fog of delirium — but Kira herself can’t see at all, the way she gleams even when there isn’t any light, a diamond cut rough-edged and dangerous by a life of violence but still with the same flame at its heart, reflected in the rusted Cardassian metals that forged this station, a beauty that she can’t see in herself yet, but which blazes so bright behind Dax’s eyes that it burns them both.

It’s about the way she looks at Dax, too, and the way she’s let her stay here. Kira may have no desire to call her quarters ‘home’, but it’s the closest thing to a sanctuary she allows herself, and still she let Dax in. It’s about the way she lets her see this place, her shrine and the empty spaces where sentiment should be, the way she opened her arms and her soul, the way she offered her faith, that most priceless of all Bajoran gifts, and prayed for her. It’s about the way she pulls her close, the way she kisses her brow, her temples, her lips, and all the hidden places. It’s about the way she almost lets herself smile when Dax takes comfort in her, the way she takes succour in easing someone else’s hurt.

This isn’t about them. It was never about them. Even the very worst of it wasn’t really about them. The very worst of it: Dax in the throes of exhaustion and withdrawal and everything else, hysterical and manic with things she couldn’t control, and Kira at a loss for how to help but still holding on just the same, clinging to her so tight that it’s a miracle neither of them broke, praying at that damn Bajoran shrine, whispering and humming and not saying anything — _“shh, Jadzia”_ , that’s all, just _“shh, Jadzia”_ , and yet it meant so much — just struggling to keep some tiny fragment of the pain at bay.

Because that is what it’s all about, what it was always about: this pain that allowed them to share themselves. The suffering and the exhaustion, and it doesn’t matter what shape it took in the end, because it’s always been there, threatening like a storm. It’s the dark cloud bearing down on every breath that Kira takes, the ominous smoke of death on the horizon, choking her lungs and turning her heart black; it’s the dim delirious flashes of memory, the ever-present whispers in the dark corners of Dax’s mind, Curzon’s voice and Emony’s and Torias’s, all of them, telling her again and again that she’s not good enough, that she’s never been good enough, that she never was and she never will be.

Dax has lived in many minds and many bodies. She has called a great many places ‘home’ — some with more sincerity than others — and she has learned through life after life that no experience in any world will ever match up to the feeling of being there, of being connected, of that moment when an old face takes on new meaning or a new room rings with an old familiar song, when the light of a distant sun reflects at a new angle into a different kind of spectrum… that moment when a derelict old space station becomes something more, when the anger is blinked away and hope lit up in its stead, eyes suddenly open to a frightening new labyrinth of promise and potential where burnt-out conduits and broken-down replicators and poisoned air filters suddenly become familiar and familial, when a place that once meant nothing at all suddenly becomes _home_.

That’s what she wants for Kira. It’s all she wants for her.

She doesn’t care whether Kira stays with her here in this bed. She doesn’t care at all about sharing beds or bodies or any parts of themselves, physical or otherwise. They’ve done all of that already; there is no part of Kira’s body that Dax doesn’t know, and there are very few parts of Dax’s that Kira hasn’t claimed or marked as hers. And the sedative is working now, sleep so close she can taste its thick saccharine in her mouth; she doesn’t need Kira’s strong wiry arms to hold her up any more, or her sweet-cool fingertips soothing fever-hot skin, or the whisper of her voice building up barricades against slow-simmering delirium and fast-burning mania. She doesn’t need any of it any more, and she knows that when she finally succumbs to the sleep she’s been denied for so long, when she stops resisting the thrall of it and lets it claim her, when she finally drifts off and comes back to herself, rejuvenated and renewed, she won’t need this moment either. She won’t need Kira at all.

But she does want her, and she always will. She has seen the light in her, the goodness, the potential for so much more than hate and fear and fighting Cardassians. She has felt those strong arms yield and give, felt her body surrender by choice, heard that hard-edged voice soften into songs and lullabies and whispers of comfort. She has seen Kira Nerys, exposed and gleaming, and she wants to see more of her. She wants so desperately for Kira to stay, to let this place become her home, because there is so much more she wants to learn, so much more that Kira has to teach her about herself.

She wants to wake up — in the middle of the night or in the early morning or the late afternoon, she doesn’t care — to the smell of that Bajoran shrine, to the tilt and curve of this ceiling, to the rough carpet and the cool sheets. She wants to wake to the sight of this woman she didn’t think she knew, this angry young creature who doesn’t even really know herself, this lost and wandering soul who refuses to accept a home even when it’s given freely. She wants to hold Kira in her arms, to guide her towards a mirror that’s not been shattered or blackened by the occupation, to show her a perfect reflection of what she is, the beautiful diamond cut clean and pure just by being here and being alive. She wants to show her a sanctuary that is all her own, a haven where others will enter only if they’re invited. She wants Kira to understand that this place will have her if she will have it, and it will give her so much of itself if she’ll only let herself accept. She wants Kira to know, to understand what being _home_ means: not just Bajor, but any place where her heart is free and her soul can sing. She wants Kira to live and laugh and love, to feel safe and know that it’s all right to feel that way, to call a place ‘home’ and feel herself respond with everything she is. She wants her to experience all of that, everything, and so much more… and she wants to be there to see it happen.

“Sleep now, Jadzia,” Kira murmurs in her ear.

It’s tempting, so tempting, but Dax will not allow her to evade this. So she doesn’t. She uses every ounce of strength she has left in her to hold herself awake, to open her eyes, to sit up and look at her, to gaze deep into those angry dark eyes, that face lined and marked by conflict, those lips drawn tight by a pain that runs as deep as seven lifetimes. She looks right at her, and she sees her, completely and entirely… and at last, with everything she has left in her, she pleads.

“Promise me. Promise you’ll stay.”

Kira knows what she’s asking. Dax can see it in her eyes, the struggle playing out behind them; she would say anything in the world right now just to make her lie down and shut up, to ease her into the sleep they both know she needs so desperately. She’d say anything, anything at all… but she is still Kira, still proud and honest, still clinging to the integrity that was the one thing the Cardassians could never take, and she will not make a promise she can’t keep.

She doesn’t want to call this place ‘home’. It’s still tainted by the occupation, its softly-thrumming walls still daubed with Bajoran blood in her mind’s eye. Dax knows that, and she understands it. And that’s why she’s not asking for that; she’s not asking Kira to claim this place yet, to open her arms to the station like she’s opened them to her. She’s not asking her to accept this place as her new sanctuary, or to call it her home. Not yet, and maybe not ever.

All she’s asking is for her to stay.

It’s a promise that Kira doesn’t want to make. Dax knows that. But it’s one that she _can_ make. And so, breathless, she does.

“All right,” she whispers. “I promise.”

Dax smiles. The room spins around her, ethereal and infinite, a universe of promises come alive, and she lets her head fall back against the cool sheets. She closes her eyes and basks in the abyss that surrounds her, the way the room doesn’t tilt, the way the looming darkness doesn’t feel like drowning, the way it feels so close to peace. Kira’s lips press to her skin again, wordless supplication at her temples, her forehead, her jaw, and Dax wishes she had strength enough left to return those kisses in kind, to supplicate herself to Kira in turn. She doesn’t, though — of course she doesn’t — but that doesn’t matter. Kira is staying, and there will be time enough for everything else later.

For now, she’ll just take the moment for what it is, a frozen heartbeat lost within a lifetime. For now, she’ll just savor the black as it closes in around her, breathe in the darkness and drink until she drowns, light herself up with memories forged in promise. For now, she’ll feel herself falling, and know that she’ll be caught. For now, she will bask in the pure joy of being here, of being alive, of being _home_. For now…

For now, at last, she’ll sleep.

**FIN**


End file.
